TCD: The Call of the Dragon
by Rogue-Mando
Summary: Follow up to 'The Crossroads' Divergence.' Harry Potter has died at the hands of an old schoolmate. When he died, Death gave him a second chance. The Master of Death finds himself in a world of Dragons, Elves, and Dwarves. Will he be the answer to Dragon's call?
1. Notice - Foreword

_Hey everyone! Like WOWTW this story is going to get a massive overhaul/rewrite but it will be done right here in this story's original place, so to those who have been holding out hope for an update I hope you like this a bit better! I decided to rewrite this because, if we're being honest, the first one wasn't that great. With (strong, like hulk strong) urging from my beta, I've gotten back on track with it. To Hkurtz2013, here we go with the official first chapter of the second round of The Crossroad's Divergence: the Call of the Dragon! Now, on with the show!_

Also, to those just joining, welcome! This little afterthought is in response to one _ShadowSaiyan666's _review. In this fic, I have Harry address Galbatorix by name when it seems that he shouldn't have that knowledge. Well, he does. These answers as to why can be found in this story's prequel _The Crossroads' Divergence - _aka _TCD. _This story is named _TCD: __The Call of the Dragon _for this reason. It is properly, _The Crossroads' Divergence: The Call of the Dragon. _I strongly recommend you read that before you come to this fic or else a lot of things really won't make a lot sense when you read it. Thank you! And now, we begin!


	2. Alagaesia Rising

'_Ow,' _I thought as I pulled my face off of the cold flagstones and pulled myself to my knees. '_Okay… A dark, damp, stone room… Interesting.' _I flicked my wrist automatically expecting my wand to appear like it always did but that was ruined by the distinct absence of the cool, polished wood between my fingers. I felt my left hand clamp around my right wrist and swore violently at the feeling of my dragonhide coat and bare flesh as I pushed my coat's sleeve up instead of my holster that I kept there.

"Damn it! I just need a wand!" Lo and behold, the familiar feeling of polished and finger worn wood snapped into existence in my hand. I gulped at the cold radiating off the wand, realizing what it most likely was. I just sighed and raised the wand, "_Lumos Sphera." _I whispered, watching as a ball of light drifted from the fifteen-inch wand to settle at the ceiling. The only thing I could do was sigh as I saw the familiar form of the elder wand in my hand… my _young _hand! There were none of the scars or wrinkles one picks up in a lifetime of police work on my hands and I felt _amazing! _"Well… Death did say I would have the Hallows and be seventeen again. But where's the bloody cloak and stone?" I muttered as I looked around the room for the two of them only to stop short when I realized I couldn't see my hands anymore. I gulped as I thought about being visible again and I was, I glanced down at where my holster used to sit and noted that even with the holster gone that there was a silvery mark - not unlike a scar - depicting the symbol of the hallows sitting there.

I shook my head and started working my wand through a series of quick and dirty proximity wards tied with something similar to what Hermione called a SONAR charm. That woman has been saving my ass for _years _now and is still doing it even when I rightfully should have been with my ancestors. Anyway, she wanted to be an unspeakable after graduation, or maybe even a lobbyist for equal rights, but Shacklebolt gave her an offer that was even better in her eyes - a chance to be a part of the newly formed Auror R&D department, head of it even. She declined headship since that meant that she would have been strictly limited in what she could have helped create - and boy did she create. She only stayed until I became head auror though since she had apparently been taking classes at a muggle uni and managed to get into Law School and risen up to become one of the Wizengamot's most successful Barristers to have ever lived - in fact I almost pity Astoria since I just _know _Hermione's going to want to try the case.

Grinning at the thought, I summoned one of her more impressive creations to me with a simple "_activate!" _in parsel after sensing that I was in what probably amounted to a true dungeon. The battle armor she created for the Auror's Dragon Corps (Aurors who had been members of the Order of the Phoenix, or who had fought Voldemort himself, were assembled into the magical world's version of SWAT and I headed the strike group before my promotion to head Auror. If it wasn't for the Dragons, I wouldn't have been able to take down Zabini) solidified around me from out of special mokeskin pouches and pockets hidden in my coat. The dragonskin coat was the mark of the Dragon corps and so Hermione decided to take a riff off of that in the design of her armor, except for the singular fact that my coat wasn't dragon hide at all - it was basilisk hide. The first basilisk I had killed when I was twelve was too badly decomposed for it to have been much use except for it's bones and fangs, this Basilisk had been terrorizing Greece when I killed it. Some idiot Dark Lord who could - unsurprisingly - speak Parsel up and decided he was going to make himself a Basilisk. It ate him…

Surprisingly, it ate him nearly a hundred years ago and had broken free of the Dark Wanker's secret hide out in oh-five. Greece called me in.

I snorted at the memory as my goblin steel barbuta slipped over my head and the visor shut with an audible _click. _Grinning, the armor snapped and clicked as it slid down my body like water - encasing me in what was quite possibly the best armor money could buy, paid for by House Black. I gave a vicious grin (quite invisible behind my visor) as the bands of steel encasing my ribs and chest tightened down to almost a second skin while my arms were coated with mail as greaves and tassets appeared over my jeans - sue me, it was my day off and I wanted to be somewhat comfortable to see my kids off to Hogwarts… Still ridiculous that the knife Astoria stabbed me with punched through the basilisk hide coat like it was butter, I shuddered at the memory but got lost in my thoughts again rather quickly. Hermione said she got the idea from the Roman Legion's style of armor while the helmet was a play on the French bascinet and Greek barbutes, Ron said the damn thing was all-around brilliant. The armor around my legs and arms were also Goblin steel but anything that was exposed or needed a greater range of flexibility was protected by basilisk hide - on my armor at least. Speaking of, the Greek basilisk was only a fraction of the size of Juliet - which was what I had _lovingly _dubbed Salazar's Basilisk when I went back down there to collect some of her venom - but was still larger than the horntail from fourth year. I shuddered slightly as I thought about how I had to take the damn thing out - blindfolded and reliant on Hermione's SONAR spell I had used to find the lay of the land in this place.

The door in front of me, while lacking any obvious handle or lock, was made of what looked like solid oak. I frowned and pressed my gauntlet to it and reached out with my magic feeling for _something. _My frown only deepened as I felt the lack of the usual suspects but still whispered _Alohomora _with my wand in my hand. I saw a pulse of silver flow from my wrist as the wand disappeared and the pulse of silver washed over the wooden door. I felt my jaw slacken at the obvious use of Wandless magic but stepped through the newly opened door anyway. I rotated my wrist and watched as my shield materialized from what looked like thin air - strangely enough, it wasn't a conjuration. It was more of a play on the expandable space idea that Hermione used liberally throughout her life. The shield was connected to a small slit in a strip of hide fashioned into a circle that was stitched underneath the left cuff of the coat while the shield itself was designed to stick to the Auror's arm after it was deployed. I've seen these save more lives than any _protego _I had ever seen.

Anyway, I was constantly sending pulses of magic off of me to act as a sort of quick and dirty proximity ward - it was no trade for the real thing but it would do for now - after casting sense warding spells on myself and sound silencing spells on my steel shod boots. Also, it wasn't like anyone could see me either since I willed myself invisible once I slid out of the room. I made my way down the long, dank corridor to the steel door looming like a prowling gargoyle. I pressed my hand to the door and raised my eyebrow at the _again _seeming lack of any wards or defenses on the door before something clicked with me.

'_The magic of this world could be completely different from Earth's. This _Galbatorix _is supposed to be stronger than Tom and, assuming the worst and this is his fortress, I'd expect him to protect his own home.' _I chewed on my lip for a beat before I made a decision and directed a wordless _finite _through the door. Metal squealed in protest as the bolt and innate magic of the door wrestled with my own magic. With a thought, I sent an _alohomora _into the door and, with a snap like thunder, the door threw itself off its hinges and onto the floor like it was tossed by an angry giant. I blinked, utterly stunned by what just happened.

I cast my best proximity ward through the door followed by about twenty different standard spells to see if the room was completely safe. It was, but it still looked like a death trap. The room I entered was a large circle with twelve doors (not including my own) and about thirty meters from wall to wall, I sighed and knew I was in for a long day. I pressed my hand to the floor and started chanting streams of spells, made much faster by the fact that I didn't have to actually make any wand motions as spell after spell flowed into the granite floor. By the time I was finished, the room was a veritable fortress ringed with aversion, proximity, warning, and offensive wards to give me time to get the hell out of here. I couldn't apparate yet - I had no idea where I was. The first thing I needed was a map, fast. So, knowing I was going to have a long time of it, pushed open the first door on my right.

"Storage room," I muttered darkly. The place was almost as bad as the Room back at Hogwarts before I… well, before Crabbe, torched the place with fiendfyre. The only bright side? This room was probably about half of the size of the Room of Lost Things. I sighed and turned to the door but caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to the old rucksack and grinned, I didn't have any supplies and it wasn't like this place's owner needed it anyway. I picked up the old rucksack and unceremoniously dumped it over. I watched what fell out with slight interest, there was a flask, a rock, a length of rusty metal, and a spoon in the small pack. I frowned at it before groaning in realization - flint and steel with a spoon? This is ancient camping equipment. I sighed as I summoned the elder wand again, preparing myself for what was probably going to be the most draining spell of the day.

"_Reparo," _I muttered, watching the old bag knit itself whole once again before I cast the next spell. "_Capacious extremis, maximus_," I snapped and prepared for the typical drain on my magic. It came but something utterly strange happened simultaneously, I could feel my magic running down my arm and into the wand but it felt like… Well, the best I could say it felt like was that someone had a cup of water and was pouring it out but it wouldn't empty because it was being constantly refilled by a _much larger _pitcher. The magic of this world was resupplying my own power before it could even drain a little bit. I felt my eyes widen as power kept flowing off of me, sustaining the spell much longer than what I thought was possible - the record for holding this spell apparently belonged to Dumbledore and he could only hold it for ten seconds. Twenty seconds passed, then thirty… Forty-five… after a minute and a half of the draining spell, I finally released it without even breaking a sweat. The thing about that spell? The longer you hold it, the deeper your bag of holding (as Hermione insisted on calling the damn things, what was so wrong with 'bottomless bag,'?) would become. Expanding the bag also wasn't linear, apparently, it was exponential. Though that's all relative, I suppose. The bag still allows you to call whatever it is you need from it whenever and it'll appear in your hand when you do.

Still has nothing on my mokeskin pouch Hagrid gave me all those years ago that I still wear around my neck to this very day. I touched my chest where it was sitting with a small smile but stood up and opened the rucksack all the same and called "_Pack!" _Immediately, the room exploded into a whirl of activity as things leaped from where they were sitting and hurtled into the pack, things that _obviously _weren't meant to fit in a gap half a meter by twenty centimeters large but they did. It took about five minutes for the room to be stripped absolutely clean of anything except dust. I shrugged the pack on my shoulders with a grin, vowing to go through all of this whenever I escaped this hellhole. But first I was going to stea… _liberate_ everything I could… I glanced around the room with a malicious smirk on my face as I summoned all the dust in the room and solidified it before transfiguring it to granite, carving a message on it, and conjuring a pedestal for it in the middle of the room.

I stepped back into the hallway with a wide grin on my face, pushing open the next door to find absolutely nothing but a small desk and comfortable chair. That was a minute-long process as I had to hit each drawer with a _finite _before they would ever open but came out of it with a few notes and a couple of pieces of what I assumed to be slate. I left the room but before I did I gave the chair a good look… It may not have been my leather swivel chair in my office but a good chair is just _so _hard to come by these days! I summoned it, and the desk for spite, before I tried the next room.

There were only a few things one could do when faced with what I was standing in front of… Squeal like a little girl, swoon, or grin ferally. I did the last as I stared at the armory a hundred and eighty meters long and sixty wide full of axes, spears, halberds, hammers, daggers, and - strangely enough - swords made with steel of all different colors. I took one of the few sheathed swords from the rack and drew it, the black blade was about three feet long and feather-light with a silver hilt.

"You are mine now, you beauty, you," I said with a broad grin, my voice reverberating behind my helm's visor. I looked up again while strapping the blade to a loop the armor created specifically to hold the sheathe. Hemione was always a few steps ahead of us in that regard… I think she thought I would wear the sword of Gryffindor but I never did like that sword - it may be in my mokeskin pouch but it's just too small for me. Ah well, the past is past, I now have an awesome new sword and was already calling for the room to "_pack!"_

It didn't take anywhere near as long for the well-organized room to fly into the bottomless sack and leave the room completely bare - save for the bolted down racks, I would have taken them too but it's just too much of a hassle in the long run. I turned on my heels and walked out of the room, already headed to the next one. I pushed the door open with a bit more force, almost straining to open it. And I could immediately see why. All my life, I had thought the singular most impressive sight in the wizarding world was my first trip to Gringotts. Piles of gold stacked higher than my head, jewels, books, and other things strewn about the floor like they had just been shoveled in there. This was similar.

The room I entered had tons of gold inside it - literally. There were heaping piles of coins stacked from the floor to the vaulted ceiling high above - not that I really cared how much there was, I'd take it all anyway. The only issue? Gold was _much _harder to spell than any other metal on Earth while lead was quite possibly the easiest, that's why the Philosopher's Stone was such an impressive invention. I sucked in a breath and braced my feet, mentally preparing for what I was about to do. The elder wand appeared in my hand as I stretched out my hand with my rucksack directly underneath my wand. "_Pack!" _I shouted into the cavernous treasury and watched as the gold all but disappeared with a _markedly _intense drop of my magic. I fell to a knee, panting as the strain made me see stars - but I was conscious and could feel my reserves flooding back to full already - I almost could have sworn I was going to get magical whiplash there for a second. It took me a few seconds to catch my breath but I managed it as I felt the first feather light pings on my proximity wards, someone had just bounced off the aversion ward. I swore lightly and jumped to my feet - I _had _to find a map or a door, immediately.

I threw open the next door and stopped in my tracks at the sight of the multifaceted, multicolored gems in small alcoves around the room ranging from the size of chicken eggs up to that of a pumpkin (obviously not Hagrid's, that is…). I waved my hand, not even saying the word to make the gems flow into the bag. I felt _something _brush against my mind but I clamped down on my occlumency like it was a wall, I don't want to know what this Galbatorix guy's powers include but if he can send a mental probe without seeing me? That was terrifying, assuming it was him at all. I gulped as I darted out of the vault and into the room beside it. I growled as I saw the room was just a library but - if there was one thing I learned from 'Mione it was that - knowledge was powerful, after all. En Masse, the bookshelves all leaped from the floor and into the mouth of the rucksack, taking up even more of my time. I hurried from the library into the next room but didn't even go into the room that - as far as I could tell - was just a pond and a bunch of mirrors… Or so I thought, on closer inspection it looked like the room was created from one long, solid piece of glass. I bore my teeth in an approximation of a smile and slammed the door as hard as I could and heard the sound of tinkling glass as I threw open the next door to find something equally useless at the moment but much more revolting.

A torture chamber.

I felt my jaw tighten as I looked at the hooded man drawing his knife down the back of a silent man. I snarled and raised my wand and barked "_bombarda!"_

The torturer exploded like a water balloon. I curled my nose. I knelt in front of the man tied on the rack but realized he was _much _too far gone to do anything for him, he was dead before I probably showed up in this world… Pity.

"Take him and have mercy on him," I whispered as what felt like a cool breeze tickled my ears. I turned from the pair of corpses and went back to the door chamber. I threw open the next door in the rotation and found myself shocked to my core. If the torture chamber was revolting this was an abomination. There were men and women tied to the ceiling being _eaten _by _something _of the likes I had never seen, things that I'm sure even Hagrid would call to be exterminated. There was one poor woman in the corner who was obviously alive and was screaming in horror mixed with agony as four hopping, skipping, massive, maggot-like _things _crawled on her body until two of them jumped up and dove _into _her shoulder and thigh respectively. I raised my wand and felt my anger rise with the volume of her screams.

Everywhere I looked in the room was a picture of devastation. Cages full of monsters, people hanging or strapped down, other monsters free to roam… It was too much.

'_Stupefy,' _I thought, sending the suffering woman into the arms of the void. I reached out with my senses and found that of the three people in there that only one could possibly be saved but even as I thought that I watched the last two bugs dive into her ears. I felt my jaw tense as I felt her drop to the border of life and death immediately. I raised my wand again with fury in my eyes, praying that these people would forgive me.

"_Fiendfyre," _I whispered, focusing all my power on holding the fire down and letting the power build. A spark grew at the end of my wand, growing brighter and brighter until everything had turned to look at me. There was a beat where everything stopped, a perfect calm that lasted right up until the Cursed Fire roared from the end of my wand like demonic dragonfire. I didn't stop to watch the end of the carnage, just praying that the Phoenix that erupted ended those people's suffering quickly… I hated to leave them to die but they were all but dead anyway if what I sensed was true, there was nothing I could do. I slammed the door shut and slammed my gauntleted fist against the stone works with tears running down my face.

"_Thank you…" _a voice said behind me, I felt my eyes widen as the spectral forms of the five people who were just being brutally tortured appeared behind me, floating midair. The woman smiled at me, her long red hair flowing down her face and moving to expose her ear. I lifted an eyebrow at the sight of the obviously sharper, longer ear. She smiled and disappeared without another second passing - just winking out of existence with the rest of her friends who also had the enlarged ears… Interesting…

I couldn't think on it any longer as I pushed open the next door as I threw as many protective wards as I could over the door, but not locking it - whoever opened it next deserved the full wrath of the fire, though it would be extinguished after making it ten meters out of the room. I shoved the next door open and grinned slightly at the sight of the hundreds and hundreds of maps rolled up on shelves - the most important one being pinned to the table in the middle of the room. I pulled my visor up to get a better look at the map, granted I didn't have to and probably could have gotten a better one with it on. The helmet was designed to sharpen details, find heat signatures, detect traps, and give a wider field of view for combat scenarios but it wasn't great for, say, reading a map in great detail. Thankfully, Death apparently fixed my eyes too - would be a bit awkward to need to still rely on those after moving dimensions.

I squinted down at the map, seeing a stylized black circle around a city named _Urubaen. _

'_Huh…' _I wondered, '_bets on if that's where I'm at.' "Accio _smaller map of…" I read the title and called out "Alagaesia!" and immediately three smaller rolls of parchment smacked into my hand. I tossed them into my pack and looked at the map again, tracing a line with my finger into the massive desert around a mountain range apparently called the Hadarac with another mountain range to the south - obviously much larger - and the forest to the north.

"Alright… Three jumps then," I said grimly bringing my visor down with a click. "Two in the Hadarac and the last to get me to this… _Du Weldenvarden… _Why does that sound like something Ron would say in the loo?" I shook my head and walked out of the room, sending a small flicker of fire on the main map and another spark into the racks. I didn't stay to watch them flare up and engulf the room in fire. '_Two to go,' _I thought as I pushed open the door to the second to last room, I blinked at the darkness and cast a quick Lumos Sphera - feeling my jaw fall as I looked at the three pedestals in the room. But it wasn't the pedestals that held my attention but what was on them.

"Dragon eggs," I breathed, "oh Hagrid would be so excited to see you…" I whispered as I placed my hand on the crimson and sapphire eggs. I picked up the blue egg and slipped it into my mokeskin pouch gently, the green egg soon behind it - these were too valuable to be potentially lost to the backpack. I took the red egg and just as I was about to put it in my pouch, there was a sound like shattering stone mixed with a ringing bell, a note so pure that I almost felt honored to hear it. I glanced down and saw that I was right to feel that way as a crack appeared on the face of the shell. I placed the egg back on the pedestal and held my breath as the little guy made more of those beautiful notes before his head popped out of the egg. His ruby eyes met my green right before he tried to finish clambering out of his shell. I laughed lightly as the little dragon fell to the floor with a small squeal before sitting up indignantly, looking at me like I did something wrong. I pulled my helmet and gauntlets off to sit in front of the little dragon, he looked at me appraisingly for a few moments and gave a sharp, approving hoot as he strutted right up to me and pressed his head into my left hand.

I felt like ice had been dumped down my spine as my magic reserves swelled to nearly thrice what they were before. But there was pain, _oh yes _there was pain. I felt the icy agony sweep through my body as my left hand cramped horribly. Thankfully it passed in a matter of seconds as the little dragon looked all too pleased with himself. I shook my head and picked up the dragon and put him on my shoulder, reaching to pull on my gauntlets when I caught sight of the silver oval on my left hand.

"Great… You did this, didn't you?" I showed the dragon my palm and he threw his nose in the air as if to say "_of course I did! Deal with it!" _I rolled my eyes, donning my helm. "Oh, right… better clean this up," I said, gesturing for the shell pieces and summoning them up into the pouch as I went for the door. But, just as I was about to push it open, I felt my Aversion ward shatter like glass. Without thinking, I twisted on heel scant moments before the last door was thrown open to reveal a large, spiraling staircase and a furious yet confident Galbatorix…

**XXX**

**With Narrator…**

To be King, one must be strong. Powerful. He must appear to be enthroned on a mountain of gold, to be as immovable as the Earth herself. But King Galbatorix - the High Lord of the Broddring Empire, and a Dragon Rider - was panicking. He knew he was lax in the security in this area but that was no failing of his. He had warded his city to be able to tell if anyone had entered through the gates or any of the _so-called _secret entryways the elves made. No one entered - or left - his city without him knowing, which was the source of his terror. Someone had gotten into his palace and wrecked Earth and Stars knew what terrors upon his powerbase all without his knowledge until he felt a presence in the dragon hatchery.

Perhaps it was caution, mayhaps it was paranoia, but Galbatorix was convinced that those eggs - especially the azure female - were the future of his empire and thus had them protected with as many wards as he could affix to a certain location. All of them had been tripped.

The King was furious that this could have occurred just under his nose… But it did. The king snarled as he pushed the door to the hatchery open and could only stare in horror at the trio of empty marble pedestals. The King could feel his heart rate jump as he scanned the room for magic and minds - trying to determine if the thief was there still. He was unsuccessful. Shaking his head, the king marched toward his scrying chamber - one of the finest in the land, crafted from the labor of the most skilled craftsman and mages the kingdom had to offer. Shattered to pieces.

Galbatorix stared at his scrying chamber in horror, thankful that it still appeared to be completely functional but the door's mirror was shattered into shards with most of the ceiling's mirrors. Thank the moon and stars that the far wall's mirrors were relatively intact, he just would not get the same degree of picture that he was used to. The King sat in the water up to his chest, willing the water calm with his magic. He focused on the three eggs. He had no such luck save to see the azure and jade eggs floating in a field of grey with shards of crimson among them.

The King looked at the image in confusion, had he not traveled the length and breadth of his kingdom? Would he not be able to see them in his own city? Surely, no thief could have made it past him in his own castle. The king stood up and went for the door, first to the bare library, the dry treasury, the deserted armory… With each door, Galbatorix's rage and fear spiked tremendously. What kind of mage could do this?

Galbatorix shoved open the door to his storage room, and was stunned to see the room empty save for a single pedestal with a plaque propped up on top of it. The king snatched up the plaque and read the simple message: "_Thanks for your stuff! Prongs Jr."_

The whole Kingdom would know Galbatorix's wrath after he stormed out of the storage room only to find his study empty with the desk and his favorite chair gone. The King was fighting panic by the time he opened the door to his menagerie but instead of his abominations he only found a fight with the eldritch horror that was Fiendfyre, though he managed to put the weakened flame down with nary a scratch. The panting, raging King was even more infuriated when he found his head inquisitor - or what was left of him - dead on the floor and, more horrifyingly, the fact that the majority of his Eldunari were _gone. _He never thought that the wards he had installed could have failed so miserably against anyone, _he _was the strongest mage in the land! Though, in the King's defense, he could have never expected or planned for the powerhouse that is Harry Potter - the newest Dragon Rider of Alagaesia… Who was even then standing up in the sands of the Hadarac Desert with an unhappy baby dragon curled up in his arms.

**XXX**

**To those concerned that Galbatorix has been neutered like in first version, please keep in mind that I ****_do _****actually have a plan for this. Next update will be coming to you on November 9th, 2020 and every three weeks after that (please keep in mind that the holiday season is fast approaching so these deadlines will be sort of flexible).**


	3. Fallout

**With Harry…**

**Hadarac Desert…**

**Forty-Five Before the Beginning of the Rider War… [1]**

"Ow! Hey! Don't bite me! I know that sucked but don't bite me, you little shit," I swore as the little beastie nipped at my fingers angrily. He looked up at me and snarled a plume of smoke directly into my face. I rolled my eyes as the little dragon clambering back up on my shoulders and nipped at my ear gently. I scratched his chin before I pulled out one of the liberated maps and looked up at the mountains in front of me. "Well… When in doubt, make like a turtle," I muttered as I turned on my heel again, headed for my next waypoint.

The little dragon screeched again but I just reached into my Mokeskin pouch and pulled out my kit of emergency rations. Unfortunately, I don't have chicken blood and brandy since that's apparently the standard baby dragon food… What I did have was another one of Hermione's brilliant inventions, a drink that could keep anyone sustained for days to weeks at a time as long as they had a mouthful - the problem was that it tasted like dragon dung. I shuddered as the thick potion rolled down my stomach and corked the canteen again, this time going for the beef jerky and giving a thick piece to the dragon who sniffed it appraisingly before swallowing it with gusto.

"Ruddy lizard," I snarked at the cooing dragon. I looked up at the choice for my second point and swallowed… "buddy… That's a big mountain…" And it was. It was easily thrice as tall as Ben Nevis back home but made sheerly out of what looked to be sandstone. I closed my eyes and knelt down, ignoring the heat easily due to temperature control runes in my coat, on the blistering hot sand. I pushed my magic into the sand and found the bedrock about nine meters down.

I couldn't help but whistle at the sheer depth but punched the ground and grunted "_Perforimusa Octopassum!" _and watched as a hole wide enough for a man to fit in comfortably drilled itself twelve meters down. I grunted in approval as the hole widened slightly more, I cast _incendio _and watched as the falling sand melted into rough glass but also made the sides of the hole much more solid - eliminating the danger of them falling onto me as I worked.

I looked at the ruby dragon who shook his head like a dog shedding water as he looked at the hole in trepidation. I sighed and apparated one more time down into the hole. The crimson dragon howled in disapproval but that's all he did. I sighed in slight relief as I knelt on the much cooler ground and reached in my mokeskin pouch for one of the things I personally created - the rabbit hole. Hermione always rolled her eyes at the name but I thought it was oddly fitting. I pulled four dice out of my mokeskin pouch but instead of having the standard numbers on the sides, these had runes carved into them - meticulously. On the horcrux hunt (after Ron took his little Hiatus that is), I had Hermione teach me as much about Runes as she could and ever since then it's been a bit of a hobby (read: obsession… I was more or less a defense and rune master at this point). These work on the same basic principle as a wizard's tent except they could be deployed anywhere underground and at any time. All I had to do was drop the dice for the bunker to deploy, magic would take care of the rest - and I did. The four dice immediately spun to orient themselves correctly and zipped to the four cardinal points of the newly crafted rabbit hole and started spinning rapidly. Almost immediately, there was a low hum and a blood-red glow from the dice as the area of the cave was warped and transformed into a bunker capable of withstanding Fiendfyre - for at least a few seconds, that is - and being warded with it's own version of a Fidelius Charm. I had Ron's and he had my secret for the bunker, we were the only two Dragons with the bunkers since the things were horribly difficult to make and took me three months to make each one after five years of R&D _with _Hermione's help.

I grinned as the bunker took shape around me, whirling and expanding the space into what amounted to a fully stocked muggle nuclear bunker fitted for at least two thousand people to be comfortable inside should it be necessary to take that step. Anyone I choose can enter the bunker by portkey and never need to be told the secret of it - but, for now, it works for a beautiful hideout while I sift through the crap I just accumulated from _someone _(who was obviously Galbatorix if the wards I laid were correct, unfortunately I couldn't lay down power detection wards but they were keyed to two things: the owner of the little fort and magical density. While similar to power detection wards, magical density measured the innate power a magician could use - power detection relied on how much they were using in a fight and took measurements based off of the spells they used). I walked over to the lift and pressed the down button as the little dragon looked at me curiously.

"To the command post, chap," I smirked and scratched the little guy's chin again but finally saw the gauntlet in the way, "oh… Yeah, I suppose I don't need the armor anymore do I?" I said in an utterly bored tone of voice. I hissed "_Deactivate" _and smacked my fist to my breastplate in a Roman salute making the armor collapse back into the coat. The Armor could be activated with a thought but Hermione made us jump through hoops to get it off, guess it was necessary though, don't want any idiot to be able to shout '_deactivate!' _and suddenly I'm back in plain work clothes - that would be bad for security but they would also have to speak parseltongue to activate or deactivate my particular armor. Anyways, there was no _actual _command post… But there was a level dedicated strictly to my Dragons and another level below that for me alone. The level above that, though, was a storage warehouse, that's where I was headed.

With a small _ding _from the lift, I stepped out into the broad, wide open facility of the warehouse like room designed to sort through anything that goes on the floor and arrange them for me to go through them later. It's usually for the House Elves to bring in food, drinks, and other necessities like bedclothes but since there aren't any house elves here it'll work for sorting the mess I stole... I just sighed and took off my pack, casting "_Eicious," _on the bag as soon as it touched the floor. Usually, the spell will work instantly… Today? There was a rumble in the pack like distant thunder before the bag _erupted _with a veritable wall of gold, wood, steel, books, and everything else I stole.

The two of us sat there and watched as the things spilled out of the bag but when the gems I stole flooded out of the bag there was an _awful _screeching that tore at my mental defenses and nearly rent them asunder in one, terrible hammer blow. In an instant, I dragged the gems back into the bag and looked at the little dragon with his head under his fore paws - he looked just as baffled as I felt.

"What the bloody hell was that?!"

**XXX**

It took seven bloody hours to go through the presorted shit that I liberated from Galbatorix, there was just _so much! _But it was worth it. Turns out, old Galbatorix had just around three tonnes of gold - it was a drop in the bucket compared to what the queen has (even compared to the Black Vault, I know Sirius had at least twenty tonnes at his command… The Goblins took almost half of it to repair the bank and most of the other half to make the ten suits of armor I asked them to make [2]) but it's still a quite impressive amount of gold.

The real treasure, though, was the armory I had collected. It impressed me so much that I decided it was coming with me and loaded it _back _into the rucksack. It turns out that each and every single one of the swords was warded and spell forged so well that it took me thirty minutes of head scratching to figure out that I had no clue how the mage who did it managed the feat - the results had come back inconclusive. Wizards back home would just cast spells on the steel itself and pray for the best while Goblins were masters of the craft. They went so far as to make their own steel by using dragon bones and iron or silver from their mines and, if possible, forged the steel in a volcano or in the earth's mantle itself - or at least that's what they told me, Death kind of gave me the rest of that crash course. Dragons were used to temper this new alloy while the Goblins enchanted the metal while it was still glowing hot, something about fusing the magic into the metal - never really understood that if I'm being honest.

Anyway, the swords were ridiculously well crafted. The blade I claimed - while a little long - was a masterfully crafted sword and light to boot! It was currently strapped to my hip as I walked through the warehouse area of the bunker and over to the large ebony table, scooping the scarlet dragon on the stuffed leather chair. He growled in protest but I hushed him, there were still a few things to finish while we were here - first things first? Water supply. The little dragon - that I needed to name - perched on my shoulder and looked around the bunker curiously. We made it to the lift again and headed down to the maintenance room in the level directly below where I was standing.

We walked in and I saw that the pumps weren't connected to _anything. _I couldn't help but groan lightly at the sight and knew I was going to be in for _another _long few hours.

"Bud," I said to the already bored looking dragon on my shoulder, "I think it's time for you to get in a kip, yeah? I've got to get to work on this." He didn't look impressed until I conjured a fluffy pillow in the corner of the room and tossed more jerky toward it. He squealed and jumped off my shoulder, awkwardly bumping across the floor toward the pillow - it was almost cute. I grinned as the little dragon curled up into the pillow and snapped up all the meat laying there. He nearly immediately passed out with incredibly loud snores for a dragon the size of a mini schnauzer but I had to blink to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me, he looked like he gained another few inches of length just from eating the jerky. My grin only broadened as I turned back to the pumps and filtration systems, another Hermy-ject if I ever saw one. This bunker was legitimately burrowed about three hundred feet down into the Earth but was heavily expanded on all ten levels.

The first was the portkey dropzone along with the cafeteria and kitchens… After the party being received was _thoroughly _vetted by either myself or the Dragon Corps themselves. The portkeys were as secure as I could make them but they were still Portkeys, security risks happen. Level two held the commons, a muggle style gym with an Olympic pool, a Library (that I had utterly nothing to do with, Hermione heard about the idea and jumped on it like an American Nundu on a niffler), and school rooms for those who may be Hogwarts age… Granted, I am not in any way qualified to teach classes besides _maybe _Runes or Defense.

Third level held the barracks, twenty bunks to a room with a hundred rooms in total to make sure everyone was as comfortable as they could possibly be. Each barracks had a head large enough to handle each and everyone of the people assigned to the barracks, meaning each head had twenty toilets but only ten showers in each. Not everyone was going to want to shower at the same time anyway. Fourth level was for laundry and held the House elves quarters. I asked Winky for advice in making that particular beast but all she said was that House Elves were fine with an area the size of a cupboard and would be thrilled to have an actual bed. So, while humans get long twin beds, house elves get half-sized twin mattresses. It may not seem like much but to them it means the world. I couldn't help but sigh as I thought of how much easier life would be if I had about twenty of the wonderful little things… Anyway… Fifth level was Agriculture and the Greenhouses that I still am clueless as to what's inside them. My herbology skills were about on par with my potions abilities, also known as non-existent. Speaking of potions, level six was almost completely devoted to them with the huge research lab and (admittedly empty) menagerie along with a fully fledged sickbay Madam Pomfrey would have murdered to get her fingers on - God bless that woman…

Anyway, level seven was the warehouse level, eight - where I currently am - is maintenance, and the last three were accessible only to me and my team. Level nine was the Dragon's den. It was a relatively small area, at least in comparison to the acres upon acres of space in the above barracks, but it was a lounge and hideaway for (at most) ten people. It was also incredibly nice for what it was. The common area had pool tables, recliners, combat books, fiction, light reading, and a fully stocked bar and kitchen… May go hit that after I'm done with these damned pipes, actually. But anyway. There were also individual bedrooms for each of the ten members of the Dragon corps, but the tenth was just a decoy. The tenth - my room - had a small, spartan bedroom but if you moved the wardrobe then it would lead directly down to my office and personal chambers. Which, ironically, brings me to level ten. The level held my full office with an automatic filing system based on muggle computers and allowed me to access all of my paperwork from my black walnut desk without having to get up and down constantly.

Of course, I haven't been able to use it in fourteen years… Actually, I haven't used the thing since before Lily Luna was born. Ginny was overjoyed about that since office work meant that I would come home every night at a relatively predictable time since good ol' Shack would send me home in the middle of a project if he had to but never while I was on a mission. Thank heavens he did, neither of us wanted to face Ginny's wrath - especially after she was nominated for Chief Witch of the Wizengamot when Marchbanks finally croaked (bloody hag she was, but thank Merlin she wasn't an immortal bloody hag), that just made her even scarier. I never thought Gin would have been a politician but once she decided to move on from sports and into politics as a proxy for the unoccupied Potter seat she became a powerhouse to be reckoned with in conjunction with Hermione.

I shivered at the thought of potentially having to face them if they made it here or if I made it back there and instinctively thought I may have to lock myself away in level eleven should that have ever come to pass. Level eleven was the prison ward - nothing major, just a ward of magic suppressing cells and an interrogation room if we needed to keep a questioning session… Shall we say, _off record. _According to Hermione, the magic proof cells would make a Nundu as weak as a kitten but we couldn't have too many cells installed without interfering with the magic of the bunker itself, so we went for quality over quantity. There are a few hundred standard cells on this level but those aren't good for much besides letting a drunk sleep off a good night.

I shook my head again as I waved my wand over the pump, grinning as it came to life with a roaring hiss. I couldn't help but grin even wider as I realized exactly what that meant - the pipes had finally found water somewhere in the nearby earth. The strange thing about the plumbing here though? Water can't really escape the bunker but the filtration systems are _incredible. _But it has its flaws. Most toilets in fact have the runes carved onto the porcelain itself and going into the pipes but sometimes some shit and piss gets through the cracks and has to be vanished in filtration. We try to reuse as much water as possible but, surprisingly, most of it gets redirected up to the surface due to the filtration process. Thankfully, the bunker is settled into the earth, into the bedrock, and then anchored down as much as I could manage so the thing wasn't going anywhere. It was also practically immune to corrosion and erosion, this bunker would sit right here for millennia if it had to and - as long as someone could find a portkey - it would always be accessible. The only problem was that it may be under a lake here in a few centuries… Note to self? Fill in the hole in the sand…

But that was tomorrow's problem. I wiped my forehead free of sweat and walked back over to the scarlet, snoozing dragon, picking him up and pulling him around my shoulders - shaking my head at the fact it even felt like he gained weight. He gave a small chirp of satisfaction as he went straight back to snoozing as hard as he could. I rolled my eyes at the little guy as I laid my hand on the wall and the stairwell to the Dragon's den appeared from the stone work. There weren't many stairs but the real trick was in making the staircase itself appear. There were a grand total of nine people besides me who could access the hidden door and they were all back on Earth.

Ronald Weasley, Colin Creevy, Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, Tracey Davis, Seamus Finnegan, Neville Longbottom, Padma Patil, Dean Thomas, and myself made up the first generation of the corps but I had no idea who they chose as my replacement. I simply sighed and rubbed my forehead as I stepped into my spartan bedchamber and headed down to my office as I pulled a map from one of my pockets. I sat in my favorite swivel chair, unrolling the map on the beautiful desk. I traced my finger over the map, looking specifically in the heavily wooded area called _Du Weldenvarden. _I frowned deeper as I found myself looking at a place labelled Ellesmera.

"A city, perhaps?" I asked the scarlet dragon on my shoulders. I looked up at him and he snorted in my face. I shook my head at his antics, "you know, you need a name." The dragon looked at me in interest as I went on, "I think I'll call you Astraeus. This whole _dragon _or _you _thing is getting old, innit?" I asked with a smirk. The dragon looked at me before he chirped lowly and pressed his head to mine, purring. I chuckled and scratched his chin gently. "Alright then, Astraeus it is. But what do you think of Ellesmera? Maybe this Kirtan place? It looks a bit closer to the desert after all… Not that it tells me all that much," I muttered but sucked in a breath, taking a silver band and attached it to my right wrist. It was a portkey that would bring me directly back here if things got too hairy and I was too unconcious to know about it. I took another, smaller, portkey out of the desk and stuck it to the dragon's back. It was all but invisible there and tied to my portkey so he would disappear with me, no matter where I was. And with that, I thought about the place I wanted to be and turned on my heel.

I immediately knew something was wrong the instant the rubber band feeling lasted about a second too long. There's a reason that long range apparition is _highly _discouraged among the populace, after all the furthest most people would consider going in one jump is Inverness to Devon [3]. Anything beyond that is risking serious risk of magical exhaustion or even death if too much was used. As soon as I had made it through the tunnel I fell to my knees gasping even as that strange whiplash in magic hit me again, filling up my depleted (and recently enlarged) reserves faster than I had ever felt them refill before. It was uncomfortable bordering on painful but I managed to get to my feet anyway. Astraeus didn't even roar in displeasure this time, just whining pitifully. I scratched his chin trying to comfort him while pushing some of my magic through my hand and into him. Eventually, the little dragon stopped whining and looked at me like I had kicked him.

"Sorry about that, bud," I said weakly, "I didn't know it was that far… It won't happen again. But it looks like I'm going to have to set up a portkey network around this country." Astraeus didn't look too impressed but huffed and closed his eyes. All I could do was shake my head as I looked up at the enormous wall of trees that looked like it rose from the sand itself. "Well… Let's get on with it…" I muttered as I stepped into the trees with my wand raised.

**XXX**

Three days. I had been trekking through this goddamned forest in circles for three damn days, or at least would have thought I was going around in circles utterly lost if I hadn't been keeping track of which direction this _Kirtan _place was with the Point Me spell - dead useful, that. In that time, Astraeus had grown up thanks to the over abundance of prey here for him to hunt. I had to do the hunting for him the first day but he picked up on it rather quickly. Little guy seemed to gain ten pounds a day - it was utterly incredible considering I had seen how slowly Norberta had grown in comparison all those years ago. Unfortunately, she had to be harvested a few years after Hagrid passed… She had run afoul a mother dragon that was _much _larger than she and, uh… well, turns out that particular Longhorn was much more vicious than Norberta was too. They were both harvested on the same day with Tracey, Hannah, Susan, and Padma all getting a cut of Norberta's hide for their coats while Dean and Seamus both got cuts from the Longhorn. Ron wanted to stand out and his wife made sure he did by getting enough Fireball hide to make a single coat just for him while Colin and Neville were perfectly happy with Welsh Green. Well, Hermione had a nice surprise for two of them. She had managed to get enough Horntail hide to make two coats, they were supposed to be for me and Ron but neither of us needed them since I killed and claimed the basilisk while Ron had his fireball coat. Leading to the final two Gryffindors being armored in what was quite possibly the finest quality dragonhide on Earth.

Unsurprisingly, mine was the best out of them all. Basilisk hide is about three times thicker than dragonhide which makes the coat (_shockingly_) about three times heavier than the other coats but it could potentially shrug unforgivables (in theory, I have yet to test that little bit of information and _never _wanted it tested) while dragonhide could redirect blasting curses and was nearly impervious to fire and blades. Though, I suppose if someone had something like, oh, I don't know, a cursed goblin dagger that had been drowned in nightmare fuel called nundu toxin laced basilisk venom after getting dragged through _hell itself_ in it's forging process then maybe the hide could be pierced… I don't know though, I'm just spitballing here. I grimaced slightly as I felt my hand drift to where I was stabbed but didn't feel as much as a scratch in the material. Usually, basilisk hide was impervious to blades, I can't tell you the amount of times some idiot tried to stab me in the back only for the blade to be stopped dead in its tracks. Hell, even Goblin steel could be stopped by Basilisk hide! I tried it in the chamber and was only able to punch through the roof of her mouth. I snorted as a thought hit me, maybe the coat protected me from the venom - canceling magicks and things like that, but maybe it let the dagger get through because of the venom as well… My thoughts were interrupted as I saw a flash of motion in the treetops and watched as the ruby dragon darted from branch to branch, flying… well, hopping and gliding, as much as he could on his underdeveloped wings even if he was about forty to forty-five pounds now and much larger than any newborn dragon had any right to be. That still bugged the hell out of me.

I wasn't sure what interrupted me from my musings but, all of a sudden, I had my hand on my sword and the elder wand in my left hand as I scanned the trees in front of me. A bare second later and three people stepped out of cover and surrounded me, one even had a bow with an arrow already nocked on the string. The two in front (a man with jet black hair and a woman with hair that was a stark reminder of Draco's) and the one behind me with his bow (another man with jet black hair and eyes to match) looked relaxed but the only the bowman had a weapon ready, the two in front of me - thankfully - had their weapons sheathed.

"Why have you come to this place, Human?" the woman asked in what seemed to be perfect English (which surprised the hell out of me considering this was a whole different world) as she stepped forward. She was shorter than me but something told me she was probably the most terrifying opponent I was going to face if things got violent. My instincts were screaming at me that she was a lot more dangerous than she looked… Almost like 'Mione if you stole a book out from under her nose, burned it, and claimed it was a joke - to say things would get ugly would be putting it lightly.

"I am seeking shelter from the king," I said simply, willing the elder wand to disappear and holding up my hands in surrender. "I mean you no harm." The man and woman's eyes were wider than dinner plates as they locked their gazes on my left hand. I raised my eyebrow at them right before Astraeus, the showman he is, dive bombed me and landed directly on my shoulders - my knees nearly threatened to give out since he weighed a whopping forty-five pounds now - hissing and sputtering at the trio of elves (I finally noticed their ears weren't quite human) he thought were threatening me.

"A dragon…" The blue eyed elf in front of me whispered in awe before they snapped back to me. "And his Rider... You stole one of the Usurpers eggs? And made it out to tell the tale?"

I grinned ferally at the term, "No. I stole three eggs but this little one hatched for me. Does he have any more? I can go back for them if you'd like?" For a second there was utter silence before the three of them ran at me faster than I could follow and tackled me to the ground - this also happened to chuck Astraeus through the air like a ragdoll, he didn't appreciate that one bit if the sound he made was any indication. I hit the grass with an explosive _whoof! _While the three elves were laughing merrily with the most beautiful, bell like tones I had ever heard.

"The Dragons have returned!" The woman cried in a surprisingly husky tone as they pinned me to the floor. Astraeus wheezed as he pawed at my shoulder, immediately the three of the elves were off of me and cooing over him.

"What is this little one's name?" The black eyed elf asked in a rich baritone before we locked eyes.

"Astraeus," I said as I clambered to my feet, pulling the dragon back onto my shoulders. "And I'm Harry, Harry Potter, pleasure," I reached out my hand and the elf clasped arms with me - much to my surprise.

"He has chosen you, it is a great honor for one of your kind, Son of Man. Just as it is for ours, and as it is to meet you, Rider Potter. I am Wyrden of Ellesmera and these are my companions." I narrowed my eyes slightly at the '_of your kind,' _part but stayed calm.

The blue eyed elf stood to his full height, did a strange little bow with his wrist curved over his chest, raised two fingers to his lips, and said "_Atra esterni ono thelduin, Shur'tugal _Potter. I am Vanir of Ellesmera."

"_Mor'ranr lifa unin hjarta onr, Argetlam. _I am Yaela of Ellesmera," she did the same little bow thing as they looked at me expectantly.

"Uh… Hi," I said as I scratched the back of my head, "I have no idea what you said but thank you? I think…" Astraeus blew a puff of air into my ear and I could have sworn the damn thing chuckled at me. I looked at him and sighed, knowing there was no way I could win against him. The elves chuckled as Wyrden picked his bow back up off the ground and slung it over his shoulder, replacing the arrow in his quiver with an easy motion.

"Quite alright, Argetlam," Yaela said quietly, "where does your path take you?"

"Where the wind blows and the King can't follow," I said with a nervous chuckle, "I uh… I kind of stole his stuff. At the very least I took a lot of it..." I tapped my chin thoughtfully as the three elves looked at me like I had sprouted three heads while I unsheathed my blade - much to their shock. I handed it hilt first to Wyrden who took the sword reverently.

"This is a rider's blade," Wyrden muttered as he held up the black longsword in the dying light.

"Taken by the mad king in the fall_," _Yaela said exasperatedly as she took the sword and inspected it herself. "Yes, we were both there, Wyrden. Only Vanir is too young to remember the devastation."

"I was born that year, Yaela. I am no child."

"Nay, but you are still young, Vanir-vodhr." The elf looked like he was about to pout but calmed at the word attached to his name.

"Just out of curiosity," I asked slowly, "when was this Fall you speak of?"

"Five and fifty years ago, Rider Potter. I was ten at the fall, Wyrden was three and twenty. We were but mere children." I felt my jaw drop as she said that, she didn't look older than twenty but she was older than sixty!

"What say you, human? How many years have you seen?" Vanir asked as he looked at me, "you look as if you have yet to see twenty but you speak with the wisdom of time… I am intrigued." He handed me the sword - slightly reluctantly - and I took it graciously, returning it to its scabbard.

"Forty-one, or one and forty, however you put it," I said scratching the back of my head, "there are… uh, extenuating circumstances for my apparent youth."

"Indeed… A man of one and forty yet you look half that age, how intriguing," Yaela said with a smirk. "Arya-dröttningu would be as well… Mayhaps you will meet her one day though she has not been seen in Ellesmera for nearly five and twenty years."

"Maybe then," I said, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. The elves just laughed merrily.

"You must come with us," Yaela said with a broad smile. "We shall return to Ellesmera with all haste upon the dawn. I ask you that you follow us to our camp, Argetlam. It is regretful that we do not have a tent for you but the weather is fair." I waved my hand in dismissal.

"Don't worry about me, I can make do. Thank you though," I said as we started back into the trees, "so how far is Ellesmera from here? I was headed toward Kirtan."

"Alone you could have wandered these woods for years and not found Ellesmera, Argetlam," Vanir said pompously. "We will arrive in a fortnight if we can find mounts. Kirtan is a three night journey on foot. We will stop there for mounts."

"A fortnight?" I asked dumbly, "it'll take two weeks to get there?"

"I believe that is what Vanir said," Wyrden said with a small smirk. "Though we may travel faster if you are an experienced rider."

"Horses? Oh no, but I do have my own talents," I said with a feral grin. The three elves didn't even answer but turned back to the trees and ghosted through them like spectres. If I hadn't tagged Vanir with a wordless, wandless tracking charm I would have gotten turned around at least three different times. As it is, I think the elves were impressed that I could keep pace with them (or at least find them, they didn't need to know that I was apparating behind them) so easily.

It took about five minutes but I found myself in a rather large clearing with the elves already bustling around the grotto, pitching tents, gathering firewood, the works.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked Yaela who was pitching her tent. With a few muttered words, the thing sprung up and started pitching itself. The woman looked at me with a smile on her lips and a spark in her green eyes.

"Nay, Argetlam. I believe we have it well in hand. I have an extra blanket if you would like it for the night?" She asked quietly and I shook my head.

"Thank you, Yaela. You're most kind, but I have my tent right here," I said patting my chest. She raised an eyebrow at me as I pulled out my mokeskin pouch and summoned my smallest wizard's tent to the top. What? I was the founder and leader of the Dragon Corps, some of those instincts never go away. I'm just glad that Death let me keep this much… It may have been everything on me, but still.

"Oh?" she asked, obviously unimpressed. I just smirked and reached down elbow deep into the necklace, much to her shock, and pulled out the tent. "By fire," she whispered as I tossed the tent behind me and she watched it pitch itself midair before staking itself to the ground.

"It's pretty impressive, isn't it?" I asked with a small smile. Waving my hand again and summoning some firewood from the underbrush and directing it toward the firepit Vanir had set up.

I glanced back at Yaela and saw her jaw hanging open, right along with Wyrden's and Vanir's too.

"Uh? Something wrong?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"How did you… Magic has to be said to be directed with use of the ancient language and you did all of this without so much as a syllable," Wyrden said, awed by the small display I just put on.

"Oh, uh… well, would it help if I said that was nothing?" I asked nervously. Apparently, it did not. The three of them dragged me over to the edge of the firepit and were bombarding me with questions so quickly that I could hardly keep track of them before Astraeus swooped in and saved the day. Instantly, the three stopped their barrage of questions to stare at the dragon perched on my shoulders again - and he's going to have to stop using my shoulders as a landing pad or my back and knees are not going to be happy about it one of these days. I just rolled my eyes at the elves, they were honestly like Lily Luna in a way. Captivated by just about anything they saw that they thought was awesome.

"Earth to elves," I snarked and they all looked at me again. "I'll answer your questions, just one at a time." I flicked my wrist at one of the larger pieces of wood - read: a massive freaking log - and levitated it out to the side of the pit, standing up and over it.

"What is your coat made of?" Vanir asked. I glanced back at him and realized that the three elves had finally gotten a good look at my coat and were eyeing me dangerously.

"Basilisk hide," I replied, turning to them fully, "nasty beastie it was. The one I slew had killed thirty people already and was on its way to killing a dozen more by the time I got there to kill it. Thing was thirty meters long and tried to _eat _me… Only the second time in my life a basilisk has tried to eat me but some people never even get to _see _a Basilisk, much less fight one, even less win…" I trailed off as I turned to the log and cast five _diffindoes _before turning the stumps over and casting _scindus quarten _on them as well to split them up into fourths, getting us twenty-four pieces of good firewood for the night.

"A basilisk? Thirty meters?" Wyrden asked. "Is that the name your people have for dragons?"

"Heavens no," I scoffed as I levitated the wood into a stack by the fire. I closed my eyes and focused on transfiguring one of the logs to match, in seconds there was a replica basilisk in my hand… But about a tenth of the size. "Keep in mind that the real thing is about about ten times this size. A basilisk, as you see," I said holding the rather docile snake up for them to examine as I knelt in front of them. They leaned in with wide eyes as they tried to imagine the massive beast, "is a giant snake that can kill with its eyes and possesses some of the most powerful venom known to man."

Vanir whistled while Wyrden stacked the firewood into a small pile in the pit and filled the center with tinder, "_brisingr," _he whispered and the tinder leapt up like a flare. I nodded in approval as the fire started cheerfully crackling while Vanir held out his hands for the serpent. I let it slither over to him and the smile Vanir had was larger than any I had seen on him. I stood up and moved to the other side of the firepit and sat down.

"And how did you slay this… Basilisk?" Yaela asked, leaning forward from her place on the ground to get a better look at the green-black snake in Vanir's hands.

"Well, considering it's hide is nigh impenetrable, I had to choke it out. Not all that hard to do, actually," I said as I stroked what little stubble I had. "Threw a bag with a metal collar over its head and shrunk it down. If it can't see you then it can't kill you, and if it can't breathe it can't fight… It was the most humane thing to do." The elves looked somber but nodded in agreement.

"Yet you wear it's skin as a trophy? Why?" Yaela asked.

"A trophy?" I blinked before nodding, "okay, I can see where you would get that impression. But no. This," I indicated the jacket, and stood up again, "is armor. _Activate!" _Immediately, the armor sprang to life around me and shocked the hell out of the elves who were now face to face with a steel clad, faceless, juggernaut. The helmet's visor didn't have eye holes but was instead charmed so where I could see out of it perfectly - better than perfectly, actually, but I already talked about that.

"Incredible," Wyrden said as he examined the armor up and down, "perhaps slightly dated in terms of design but it is strong, light, and fast… Rhunon-elda will be eager to examine this."

"_Deactivate!" _I hissed, slamming my fist to my chest again and looking Wyrden in the eye with a raised brow. "Just who is this Rhunon and why will she be examining my armor?" I snapped sarcastically. Apparently the elves didn't catch it.

"She is the smith," Vanir said seriously and nothing more was said about it as the fire crackled merrily.

"Ah." I said, like that explained everything… Though it may have had.

"What do you know of us, Harry?" Yaela asked quietly.

"Nothing," I said honestly, and that was the truth. I had no idea what these elves were like considering the elves back home were all of the house variety.

"Then make yourself comfortable, son of man, for we have little time to teach you what you must know in Ellesmera." She said quietly. I snapped my fingers and four rockers appeared around the fire from out of nowhere. I climbed into one as the three elves looked utterly stunned.

"What? Never seen a bit of conjuration before?" I asked with a smirk as Astraeus settled in my lap as the elves began to educate me on their culture and people as the sun sank below the trees - foreign stars hammering home the fact that this was not my world.

**XXX**

**[1] - Also known as 7955 After Creation, also known as 45 years before Canon.**

**[2] - 20 tonnes of gold = 1.286 billion dollars modern. Please keep in mind that this is a rough figure, I am not going for accuracy of bullion or if this would be a feasible amount.**

**[3] - Roughly 450 miles, max apparition distance is 500 miles for narrative purposes.**


	4. Of Elves and Ellesmera

**With Harry…**

Considering the day I had yesterday, I was shocked that I was able to sleep at all, much less until sunrise. Turns out, elves rise with the sun and that's when I was up too… Much to Astraeus' displeasure. I just pulled him onto my shoulders as we exited the tent. I grunted as I stood up, not that the now fifty-pound dragon was all that heavy (he was) but because he was thrashing and moving on my shoulders like a marlin.

"Astraeus, hold still," I muttered as I got to my feet outside the tent. It was a brisk morning but not the worst I had ever felt. I was still in my jeans and coat but since that was all I really had on me it was hardly surprising but it was perfect for the cool morning air - my temperature control rune schemes in the coat weren't even active yet. I staggered over to the coal pit that was once the firepit and sighed in slight relief feeling that they were still hot. I knelt down beside it and reached my hand over it, wondering what I was going to do about breakfast. I felt my stomach turn at the thought of having to drink anymore of Hermione's super drink but had resigned myself to it if it was necessary - right up until I saw Yaela petting a rabbit. Unfortunately, Astraeus saw the fluffy, little bunny too.

I felt the little bastard's head snap up and his tail flick back and forth as he prepared to leap for the bunny. I guess the rabbit sensed his imminent death too because it snapped it's head up, saw Astraeus, and bolted from Yaela's lap. Astraeus leapt through the air and sacked the little rabbit before it could make it ten feet away… Say what you will about the little guy, he's _fast _when he wants to be_._

"Well…" Yaela muttered weakly as the dragon tore into the rabbit with gusto, "he is a dragon."

"That he is," I said as I walked up next to her, "when do you want to get moving?"

"As soon as our mounts arrive, Rider Potter," she said, tearing her eyes from the hungry dragon.

"Yeah… That's a bit gruesome, innit?" I asked offhandedly.

"More so than you currently know, Shur'tugal. When you learn our ways, you will see why we do not partake as he does."

"You don't eat meat?" Now I'm interested. Ginny tried a vegetarian diet for a while there but figured out rather quickly that meat was just easier to get a hold of sometimes and was just better at keeping you going when you had to burn a lot of calories to play something like quidditch. I had figured that out on the Horcrux hunt, squirrels are stupidly brave after all.

"Nay…" she whispered, shuddering, "life is sacred, Argetlam. We only take lives when necessary for our survival and, even then, we do so with heavy hearts."

"That's a beautiful way to live, Yaela," I said quietly, "and I do agree with you, though I am afraid my physiology requires me to take in nearly thrice as many calories as any normal man… Fruits and vegetables are just not capable of providing that by themselves."

"This is a side effect of your magic?" She asked with a lifted brow. It was one of the few things we talked about last night, how our magics were so different. Turns out, they get their strength from the air and life around them while I have a… Well, I've heard it called a core but it was more along the lines of a battery. If it runs low, it can still be recharged but I'll be down for a few days with a horrible case of magical exhaustion but if you run it too low - or completely out - for too long… Well, I'm sure you can guess what would happen. But it did explain why my magic had been recharging so quickly as of late, the very environment was saturated with it. Back home, the core was almost necessary to fuel any outward expression of magic with any significant power behind any form of spells because there wasn't much actual magic in the very air like here. My theory is that magic here was bound to the land and the dragons once acted like conduits for it while back home dragons were just one of many magical beasts that roamed the land.

"Yes. My body makes what I eat into magic but the magic of this land has been strengthening me beyond what I thought was possible. In fact, I've never felt stronger in my life."

"You will only gain strength with the centuries, Rider Potter," she said offhandedly and I only stared at her as a ball of ice dropped into my stomach.

"Centuries?" I asked weakly. Yaela looked back at me with her brows knitted until the penny dropped.

"Indeed, Argetlam," she said curiously, "is it not the wish of your kind to be immortal?"

"Not a wish of mine," I said quietly, looking back over to the little dragon who had rolled on his back to enjoy the morning sun. "I had a family. A wife and three kids… My Godfather passed on twenty-five years ago and now I don't know if I'll ever see them again."

"No, Rider Potter. We all pass on by our lonesome. While it is a beautiful idea that you would see them again, it is a fallacy," she said gently, touching my shoulder as I felt my chest tighten.

"I'm not giving up hope," I said quietly, meeting her eyes. She nodded slowly and turned back to her tent. I closed my eyes and felt my body twist and warp as I transformed into my first animagus form. My eyes opened again and the world had seemingly changed, colors were sharper, my field of view was better, and I could see in the UV spectrum. I opened my beak and cried out as I leaped into the skies.

This was the first form I achieved almost straight out of Hogwarts, a jet black golden eagle. It was almost a ridiculous transformation since my Firebolt was so much faster (except when diving, nothing beat diving as an eagle) but it did come in handy for the night missions when we needed better intel than what we had on hand. People may look at an Eagle for a second or two but, unless they're serious birdwatchers, they'll look away pretty fast. Also, since I don't actually have a broom - besides my original Firebolt Sirius gave me all those years ago (that was shattered in two) in my pouch - with me, this was the best I could do for flight and I desperately needed a way to clear my mind. Kind of happens when you have the bombshell dropped on you that you've become immortal. I dove down toward the ground with all the speed I could muster before pulling up and running a lap around the clearing. I pulled up and launched myself back into the skies before I eventually looked down and caught sight of Astraeus who was looking at me in a kind of awe as he looked toward his own wings and the sky. I dove back toward the ground, pulled myself to a stop, and landed in front of him. He looked at me excitedly before he looked at his wings and hooted sadly, I changed back to my human form and scratched his chin.

"One day, bud," I said with a grin, "and one day you'll be even faster than me." He did his best attempt at a roar that had me grinning even wider. I reached down to him and he clambered up my arm like it was a ramp, going to his spot around my neck. I felt a tickle on my mental shields with a haze of familiar red, I was so stunned at the color that it slipped past most of my defenses before I knew what was happening.

'_One day, Harry,' _Astraeus whispered into my head. I looked at the little dragon with my jaw completely slack.

"You can talk!?"

'_Yes,' _he sounded way too cocky but I couldn't really fault him. I shook my head and looked up to where the three elves were staring at me in utter shock even as I felt the little dragon leap off my shoulders and over to where Yaela was standing. He looked up at her before curling into a ball at her feet.

"Argetlam," Wyrden asked with awe on his face as he picked up a familiar jet black feather, "where did you learn to do this? Can it be taught?" I grimaced slightly at the look of sheer hope on all three faces and hesitated as I thought of how to answer that question.

"Maybe…" I started slowly, "I'll have to find the potion and see how much I have left - if there is any. Don't forget that there's no promise you would get an animal you want - I'm also not sure if it could work since our magics are so much different…" I said as I looked at them but that hope didn't disappear at all.

"Argetlam, if you can grant our people the ability to take to the skies on the wings of eagles, we would be in your debt," Yaela said wistfully, looking at the skies and then back at Astraeus before her eyes met mine. I nodded slowly.

"Again, no promises," I said. She nodded but grinned broadly all the same.

"Flying without a dragon," Vanir whispered, "I didn't know it was possible."

"Aye, Vanir-vodhr," Wyrden said quietly, "though our flight must be different if we wish to reach Kirtan on time. Come, we must go. Rider, can you keep up with an elf?" He asked seriously, his coal black eyes almost flat with his back to the sun. "I am aware that you can keep up as an Eagle, but we will be running for many days. Will you require rest?"

I didn't say anything, just transforming into my second form. Hermione had a theory back in oh-one, the second year after I had formed the corps (with Kingsley's and Robard's blessings, of course), that theory was that everyone that was magical had an animal corresponding to their human side and another for their magical side. Ron and I were her guinea pigs, as usual. She also was able to avoid the standard mandrake animagus process and went straight to making a potion with help from the unspeakables who were salivating over the idea of a new animagus process that was not only easier than the tried and true method but allowed for _two _forms. The Unspeakables were pissed that Hermione wouldn't join them since the only reason she didn't was because she couldn't get us the cutting edge equipment directly. "_If I can't tell you what i'm working on, and you can't tell me what you need, how on Earth am I supposed to keep you alive?"_ Was her famous quote to the two of us.

Anyway, the process was a resounding success but there were limitations to this brand new potion. The mundane animal would have the animagus' coloring, no matter what. For instance, Ron and I were both golden eagles but mine had jet black plumage and green eyes while Ron's was a dark auburn (thankfully for him, his hair had faded from the shocking red of his Hogwarts days during his time in the academy) with his eye color. The magical side - on the other hand - was luck of the draw from what Hermione theorized.

Ron's second form was something none of us had ever even heard about before, right up until an Unspeakable keeled over (he got up seconds later, thankfully) at the legendary animal standing in front of him. When he came to and saw Ron's form, a second time, he was only able to gasp out _Squall Lion _before bolting away and coming back with twenty other Unspeakables who tested Ron _thoroughly. _I, for one, thought it was hilarious. Right up until I transformed and they turned their probes on me.

My second form was a melanistic American Nundu - also known as a Magical Panther or, as I prefer, the Aztec Bane. The Massive jungle cat could transform from the size of a (still rather large but otherwise) normal Jaguar up to about the size of a bison while actually being _faster _than it was at standard size. It wasn't exactly the most subtle animal for most jobs since it _was _a big cat but it could still prowl around pretty well.

The most impressive thing though? I could produce the toxic breath without the great honking venom sack around my neck like the African species - not that I used it all that often, it was a little hard to explain the controlled use (well, as much as Nundu gas can be controlled, that is) of what amounted to a WMD in an after action report. While fiendfyre is much more destructive and basilisk venom is _much _more concentrated, Nundu breath is insidious - especially the American variety. The African version has a strange green tint to it that you can see coming from a kilometer away while the American strain, on the other hand, looks like a heat mirage. You can't see it, you can't smell it, all you can do is hope you don't get caught up in it. It can melt lungs, travel against the wind, and will kill you in seconds if you're caught unprepared. The prevailing theory was that a strong bubble head charm could save your life against the venom, but that was proven wrong by me and the Unspeakables. The venom slipped under the charm like it wasn't even there, which had the unspeakables scratching their heads and checking their notes before throwing up their hands and saying "_we don't know!" _

Ron, good old Ron, fell over laughing when he heard the results, muttering about Potter luck - or something incomprehensible like that - while Hermione was just as baffled as the Unspeakables and she was the one who proposed that it acted sort of like an incredibly powerful chlorine gas! She hypothesized that since usually gas masks would protect you from the worst of that chlorine gas it would protect you from the nundu gas, obviously that wasn't the case. It seeps into skin just as easy as you can breathe it in, bursting veins and arteries as it forces its way into your heart.

Thankfully there was a way around that. And just what was that saving grace?  
That would be that the venom degraded and disappeared in less than half a minute and there were ways to protect yourself from it. Hermione eventually found that the only way to protect yourself from the venom was to either _be _a Nundu or to be completely encased in a wall of Goblin steel or Dragonhide. Apparently, dragon hide - since it's basically hundreds of layers of armor lacquered over itself to make a form of skin - can protect against the venom relatively well. She designed the Dragon Corps armor with this in mind, thus the design had the user completely clad in steel with layers of dragon hide filling the chinks necessary for movement.

The truly genius idea, though? She created oxygen conjuration runes on the inside of the faceless helmet along with the sight and sight enhancing runes that let us actually see what's on the other side of the helmet - leading to our completely enclosed, blank face masks. If only I had the damn thing when fighting the Greek Basilisk…

But, back in reality, the three elves looked utterly stunned as a meter tall, black cat stood in the middle of the clearing with its tail flicking back and forth. I nodded my head thrice before warping back to my human form.

"I can keep up easily. As for rests? Yeah, I'll probably need to stop at night at least."

"We had planned to stop for camp each evening, Argetlam. Come, we must go now," Wyrden said with a small smile. I looked down at Astraeus who was still dozing at Yaela's feet and sighed. I picked up the dragon and sent him: _Go with Yaela. _He looked at me quizzically but I just changed back to the Nundu form. He didn't look impressed as he huffed and jumped up onto Yaela's shoulders - much to her surprise. I growled with the best approximation of a jaguar chuckle and pawed at the floor as Vanir took off like a shot into the trees. I couldn't help my grin as I took off behind him.

It took two minutes before I felt my tracking charm starting to strain - granted, I didn't put much power behind it but still it was quite impressive that the group got ahead of me so quickly. '_Just how fast are these people?' _I thought but shook my head and apparated above the trees, warping into my Eagle form - catching up with the group rather easily. I stretched my wings and did a quick barrel roll, ready to take on whatever this new world held.

**XXX**

Kirtan wasn't so much a city as it was a waypoint - from what I could see - and it had taken us three days to reach it. The four of us stopped just outside the city limits and I was told to wait with Astraeus as they got us all horses. They came back a few minutes later but I took one look at the ponies and decided then and there I was going to stick with flying but left Astraeus with a horse of his own. He wanted to fly with me but he was still just too slow to keep up with my eagle form and the group itself, and there was the small fact he couldn't really fly just yet. I was hoping maybe he would be able to get in the air in a few days but there were no promises that would happen. Though it was a good thing we got him a horse when we did. The little guy wasn't too little anymore at a whopping forty-five kilos [1]. I made him a nest of pillows on the horses back and the three elves and dragon took off at a gallop as I gave chase from above.

It took thirteen days of hard travel but thank Merlin we were almost there. I had gotten to know a little of elven culture at night beside the campfire and how I should address the queen when we make it there, though my grasp on the ancient language virtually amounted to their greeting, how to make a pebble float, and how to make fire. Little did I know that things were just about to get rather interesting. On the evening of the thirteenth night things changed.

"Shur'tugal," Vanir said quietly, "tomorrow you must ride with us. Your dragon is now abreast with the horse he rode, it is truly remarkable. Though I fear he must walk or fly for the rest of the journey on his own."

'_Spoil-sports,' _the not-so-little dragon said into my head. I grinned slightly but nodded, glancing at the dragon gnawing on a doe's leg that he had caught earlier today. He was fourteen hands high at his shoulders and was the same size as the horse was chosen for me to ride. I sighed but looked over to Astraeus and sighed.

'_Aye, but they're not wrong, you great, scaly beast,' _I poked at him before I turned back to the elves as he protested but I just nodded. "I'll take him. What's his name?"

"Rivkolr," Yaela said as she stroked the horse's snout gently. I walked up to him, holding out my hand. I waited for the horse to make the first move and he did. He walked up to my hand and pressed his snout to it. I grinned as I patted his flank, he sort of shied away at first but quickly got comfortable with me but I finally realized something I hadn't before.

"Uh… Where's his saddle?"

"These horses need no saddles, Hadrian-vodhr," Wyrden said. "They are commanded by the ancient language - I have taught you the phrases myself. Tell it to go and it shall, but do not treat him as a slave. These horses are our friends, Shur'tugal. Treat them as you would your own dragon.

'_As if the not-for-food-deer could be as magnificent as I,' _Astraeus said into my head. I rolled my eyes. Ever since the little guy learned how to talk he had been nothing but a pompous pain in the ass.

'_Hush, you,' _I said back to the dragon who was now looking at me. He belched a stream of smoke as he curled up again. I shook my head exasperatedly but looked back at Wyrden. "You have my word, but I've never ridden a horse before," I said a bit nervously and muttered, "well, no horse without _wings _that it is…"

"Rivkolr will not allow you to fall, Argetlam," Yaela called "not unless you deliberately throw yourself from his back. Come, help me with the fire wood."

"_Accio _dry log," I called, almost bored. A few moments later, a log thicker than I was tall came lazily floating into the camp. I could only stare at the thing in shock. "I, uh… that's not _quite _what I wanted," I said, slightly chagrined. Yaela only threw her head back with a ringing laugh as I set to work splitting and cutting up the hundred foot long oak. Even with magic, it took me twenty minutes to cut down and split the mega tree into something usable for firewood.

"We do not need this much wood, Shur'tugal," Vanir said with a pensive frown, "what do you plan to do with the excess?"

"Keep it, store it, good firewood is hard to come by." I said with a shrug and a gesture to my pack. His eyes widened as he got the message.

"Of course, Hadrian-vodhr, I had forgotten of your pack of infinity."

"How many times do I have to tell you lot that my name is Harry?" I asked exasperatedly as the elves all laughed.

It was mid morning on the fourteenth day that I had really wished I could have flown instead of riding. Apparently, as horses go, Rivkolr was an excellent horse - but, as riders go, I was shit.

"Merlin damn it," I swore quietly as I felt a blister on my inner thigh pop and I could have sworn the damned horse giggled, I knew Astraeus did since I heard him in my head laughing hysterically. Thankfully, my misery was about to end as Wyrden threw up his hand and shouted something that sounded a lot like blotter! Blotter! It took me a second to realize that he was actually shouting in the ancient language and telling us to stop. My horse was obviously a lot smarter than I was because he came to a swift canter and then a trot until we came abreast with the rest of the riders at a dead halt.

"Rider Potter," Wyrden said quietly, "in a league, we will approach the limits of the city. The way is protected by Gilderien the Wise, he who is the Prince of House Miolandra, Wielder of the White Flame of Vandil, and the Guardian of the City since our war with the Dragons - Du Fyrn Skulblaka. When we approach him, I would advise you to do so from the back of Astraeus Bjartskulr with your hand bearing the Gedway forward. Do you understand?" His black eyes were unwavering as they bored into me. I nodded slowly but had to ask.

"This war with the dragons," I started cautiously, "when did it happen?"

"Twenty-Seven hundred and nine years ago, Rider Potter," Yaela said quietly, "and it is said the Prince was ancient even then. One of the few of our kind who crossed the sea from Alalea and yet he still lives. He would have seen nearly twenty-eight centuries, young Rider."

I looked at her in disbelief before saying, "you do realize I'm just a few years younger than Vanir and twenty years younger than you, right? But compared to this prince we're all mere children aren't we?"

"Indeed we are, Rider… Indeed we are," Wyrden said with a pensive smile as Astraeus finally swooped down through the branches to land beside me and Rivkolr.

"_Why have we stopped?" _He asked as he turned his crimson eyes to me. I shook my head and dismounted Rivkolr.

"Because we have to walk the rest of the way, bud," I said with a sigh. "And Wyrden there suggested I ride you."

"_As it should be… When I'm strong enough, we will fly together properly. Not side by side while you are in that gnat's body," _he said in his rumbling voice. I just chuckled and rubbed his face gently, he actually cooed as I did and growled as I stepped to his side and made to climb up on his back. "_Partner-of-my-heart, why did you stop?"_

"Because we have to get moving," I grunted out as I finally managed to find a comfortable spot between the spines on his back. The elves looked at me curiously but we kept up our conversation.

"_This elf, he has been there for how long?"_

"Well, you hatched just over two weeks ago, bud," I said as we started walking forward, "Gilderien has been there for much, _much _longer than even I've been alive. He's probably the single oldest person you would ever meet," I said quietly. The dragon fell silent for a few minutes as he just walked alongside the ambling horses.

"_I would very much like to meet this old elf, partner-of-my-heart," _the dragon said quietly. I grinned and patted his side.

"You will bud. You will."

"_But why can I not fly?" _He asked as he huffed a small plume of smoke in my face and twitched his tail.

"That… that's actually a good question," I said as I looked over to the trio of elves with a raised eyebrow.

"What is his question, Hadrian-Vodhr?" Wyrden asked with a small smile.

"He wants to know why he can't fly," I asked with a raised eyebrow. Yaela nodded slowly and was the one who answered.

"This forest is old, young one. Far older than even Gilderien but, to answer his question, we have already triggered wards to protect Du Weldenvarden's oldest city - Ellesmera. It would be unwise to stray from the path until we meet the gatekeeper. Even then it would be wiser to tread lightly." I gulped but nodded all the same.

"_Harry… What does that mean?" _I didn't respond outloud, just sending a thought back through our connection as I clambered up his side.

"_That means that we stay grounded. No matter the cost," _I said warningly. I felt Astraeus agree as he shuddered slightly underneath me from my place on his back between his spines.

It took us about half an hour to make it through the absolutely enormous trees, (seriously, the smallest of them were bigger than the biggest trees back on Earth!) and I could only stare in awe at the sheer immensity of the forest around me. Some of these trees were taller than skyscrapers in London and were _still _growing.

"_Maybe I was wrong," _I thought to Astraeus who perked his ears up slightly, still plodding forward, "_maybe this place has no more magic than home does, it just has a sheer density that nowhere back on Earth can match… Nowhere on Earth could have ever matched…"_

"_It's so big," _he said, obviously awed.

"_Yes… Yes it is."_

Everything shifted in an instant though. The forest, for the past few miles, had seemed gloomy, dark… All of that changed as we stepped across a boundary. I felt the hairs on my neck stand up as we crossed it - everything changed. The gloom retreated in an instant and revealed an elf standing there in a shaft of sunlight. I gulped as I took in the sight of the obviously ancient elf in all white, flowing robes with a simple circlet of silver on his head.

"Hadrian-Vodhr," Wyrden said quietly, "show him your palm."

I gulped and nodded, raising my left hand and barring the Gedwey Ignasia for the old elf to see. He frowned at me, obviously not pleased at my coat. I felt my throat go dry as I realized something incredibly important, these people practically worshipped dragons and it looked like I was wearing one's skin. I swallowed and looked at Vanir.

"Do you still have the Basilisk?" I asked before I looked at Wyrden, "I'm going to need you to translate. I think that he thinks that I killed a dragon," I said now on edge. Vanir looked a little nervous too but handed me the snake that was still somehow hanging around.

"I apologize that I do not know more of your language," I said as the snake slithered up my shoulders lazily and Wyrden translated my words to the old man who actually looked curious now. "But I can assure you, I have not harmed any dragons in my life. I have killed these," I held up the basilisk calmly, "in self defense. You see, they can grow to roughly the same size as these trees surrounding us," I said as I pointed to one that was roughly the same diameter as Slytherin's basilisk. The elf followed my gaze but I had already turned back to him. He nodded in understanding. "The first one I killed had already taken a life, a girl no older than fourteen years," I said. Wyrden repeated it and the old elf's eyes narrowed to slits. "I avenged her and saved the life of an eleven year old girl in the process. I killed it with nothing save a sword at the age of twelve. The next one I slew was utterly mad and had murdered thirty innocents and was positioned to slay a dozen more…" The old elf nodded in understanding as I patted my coat. "This is not a trophy, this is a form of armor. A reminder to keep Constant Vigilance," His eyes widened in realization as a soft smile crossed his lips and opened his arms.

"The path is clear, Shur'tugal," Wyrden said as he stepped forward. I got Astraeus moving beside him while Yaela and Vanir passed on his right. We made it a few paces past him and I just happened to look back and see the ray of sunlight disappear - and him with it. If it weren't for my years of doing something similar I would have been impressed.

"_Can we fly yet?" _Astraeus asked impatiently, I just chuckled and relayed his question to the rest of our little group. They all smiled but shook their heads in unison.

"We are almost in the city, little one," Yaela said soothingly, "your patience shall be rewarded greatly."

He huffed out a plume of smoke but didn't protest anymore. I jumped off of his back and warped into my Nundu form, shifting to be about his size and nudged his shoulder gently. He bared his teeth playfully as I growled in that strange approximation of a chuckle. For a brief second I had the thought of what someone would have thought if they saw a pony sized Panther playing with an equally small dragon… Though small is definitely relative here.

I warped into my eagle form, winging myself over to Rivkolr and landed on his back with the ease of practice. I changed back to my human form and rode abreast with Astraeus.

"_Thank the stars," _Astraeus said for all to hear, "_you're heavy for a human."_

"And you're short for a dragon," I shot back at him without any heat.

"On the contrary," Wyrden said, "he is quite large for a dragon not even three weeks old… His growth is quite remarkable, one could say it's almost unnatural."

"_One could say magical," _Astraeus said with his nose a bit higher in the air. I stopped for a beat as I realized something rather important and looked at Astraeus a bit closer until I was interrupted from my thoughts that the dragon had picked up on.

"Indeed," Yaela said with a grin, "though I wonder how long this may last."

"What do you mean?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "I knew he was growing fast but he has a growth cap, doesn't he?" Yaela just laughed brightly as I blushed slightly. "Oh."

"No, Shur'tugal, your partner will grow to the size of the mountains should fate will it," Wyrden said with a slightly sad smile. Around the fifth day, they had all asked if they could see the eggs that I had stolen and were all disappointed that there wasn't even a stirring in them when they touched them.

"That's insane…" I whispered as I looked at the preening dragon.

"_I am the greatest of all creatures, after all," _he said arrogantly.

"The most arrogant of all creatures maybe," I snarked back at him out loud, getting a chuckle from the elves who were used to our antics by now but privately I sent him, '_second to elves it would seem_.' The dragon snorted a small plume of fire but I blinked as I caught sight of something, something that looked like a path. There was another, and another… Something wasn't quite right here.

"Welcome, Shur'tugal, to Ellesmera," Yaela said quietly. I glanced over at her before the world seemed to rearrange itself and I finally realized what I was looking at - a city of earth… Well. Of trees, really. But there were no people to inhabit the city, or so I thought.

It started as flickers on the edge of my vision, images so sharp that I thought I didn't really see them, maybe it was just leaves falling. At least, that _was _my thinking until we made it another five hundred feet into the city and caught sight of appendages. A foot here, a hand there, a sandal or two here, a face over by the weeping willow, a flash of silver disappearing behind an oak… A few more steps forward and the elves' curiosity finally won out over any sense of caution.

As one, three hundred almond eyes locked onto Astraeus and a cheer erupted through the city as Wyrden dismounted from his horse and whispered to it. I don't know what he said but the silver dipped its head and plodded away. I couldn't be happier to dismount and did so as fast as I could without losing my footing with Yaela and Vanir doing something similar. I patted Rivkolr's snout and whispered "_ganga" _to him. He dipped his head and turned away, following his companions as they plodded off in the trees. When they disappeared, I stepped beside Astraeus and the roar of the people just grew louder with chants of "Argetlam," or "Bjartskular," and "Shur'tugal!" I looked at Astraeus who was just looking down at me. He looked thoroughly impressed as he preened from the attention.

"_This is how a dragon should be treated, Harry," _he said as he let a puff of smoke out his nose.

"_Your head is too big already, you ruddy lizard. Come on, we're getting left behind." _And we were, Wyrden was leading the way through the crowd straight toward a set of utterly massive double doors.

"The Queen and Council await," Yaela said as she almost appeared out of the earth beside me, "we musn't keep them waiting, shall we?" She asked with a broad smile that I returned easily.

"No, I don't think we should. Lead the way!" And she did, right beside Wyrden as Astraeus and I brought up the rear. Wyrden made it to the top of the staircase and pushed the door open. I don't know what I was expecting to see but a chamber with a honeycombed roof while being made from Red and White oak certainly wasn't it. I stepped into the chamber and thought Merlin himself had walked through the doors beside me based on the looks the elven lords and ladies were giving me. Most of them were leaning so far forward in their seats that I was half convinced they may fall out of them - that didn't take away from the fact that they each had a sword belted to their hips with the silver circlets settled on their brows.

"Wyrden, Yaela, and Vanir of Ellesmera, welcome home! Shur'tugal, we welcome you as well!" the woman settled on a throne of what looked like knotted roots on a raised dais called from the head of the room. She was breathtakingly beautiful with hair darker than midnight tied back with a crimson band and placed delicately under a simple diadem. I swallowed at the sight of the diadem and was thankful that it was just a simple silver band with a diamond inset on the front, otherwise it would have reminded me too much of Ravenclaw's diadem that I destroyed all those years ago, but, of course, that line of thinking always brought me back to my first - and nearly lethal - encounter with wild Fiendfyre and those thrice damned Horcruxes… The queen, for there was no doubt who she was, stood there in a velvet cloak over a scarlet tunic held at her hips with a simple length of braided gold. The most striking thing, though, was the white raven perched on a curved rod that she held in her hand. The Raven locked eyes with me and I felt the hairs on my neck tingle as the chamber fell silent, until the raven croaked, "Peverell, son of Ignatius. Heir of the Brothers Three, be welcome."

I stared at the raven in shock, my mind racing for any possible answers I could come up with but was rudely interrupted from those thoughts as the Queen hushed the Raven and rose from her throne. As one, the three elves I had traveled with knelt before their liege. I, on the other hand, remained standing. This was not my queen, I had only met my Queen once and I could already tell that Elizabeth, old bat she was, was thrice the woman this queen looked to be - no matter how graceful or powerful she may appear. The elven queen raised one of her perfectly manicured midnight eyebrows at me and tried to bore holes into me with her brilliant green eyes that were just a shade paler than mine.

"You do not kneel, rider?" She asked. I shook my head as Astraeus growled lightly, I just placed my hand on his flank and said:

"No, majesty. I do not. You are not my queen, you are not my race. It is not my place to kneel before you as of yet - or possibly ever. I am beholden to my dragon as he is beholden to me, I shall not kneel for then Astraeus would be subordinate to you. As you can imagine, a dragon kneels to no man or, as the case may be, elf."

"You speak words of wisdom, Shur'tugal… _My _subjects, rise," she said and I didn't miss the emphasis on _my _as she looked at my three companions who had all risen to their feet. Even though I was slightly annoyed, I glanced at them and twisted my hand over my chest and did the traditional greeting to the queen, she deserved that respect at least. She looked slightly surprised but said the second line of the greeting.

"I am afraid that is the extent I have made of learning the Ancient tongue. I am Harry Potter and this, as mentioned, is Astraeus," I said with my hand still on his flank.

"This is no fault of your own, Rider Potter. Two weeks is hardly time enough to learn an entire language. What business brings you to my city, besides my scouts, that is?" She asked with a small, utterly fake, smile.

"I am seeking shelter from the king, Galbatorix," I said seriously, "I was fortunate enough to find myself in a position where I was able to… _Liberate_ a good portion of his possessions, most of which will remain in a location non-disclosed until further notice - though it is most assuredly secure."

"And what is it you stole from the murderer that could interest us?" one of the nobles called down from the bench. I didn't even hesitate as I unslung my pack, upended it, wordlessly cast _Accio Rider Swords _on it, and watched as hundreds of the multicolored blades tumbled out of the bag. I summoned the elder wand and waved my hand at the unruly pile, causing the blades to leap into the air and sort themselves by color before hovering point down in the air, slowly revolving around me in four rings.

"Those are rider swords!" Another voice called from the bench. I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes as the mutters stirred up even further.

"Blagden," the queen said quietly to the Raven that knew _way _too much, "fetch Rhunon, she is needed." The white Raven leapt off the staff the queen held and flew through a window. I raised my eyebrow again as the queen started talking again.

"Very impressive, Rider Potter. I thank you for returning these to their rightful people." I narrowed my eyes at her, stopping mid-movement as I brought my hand to my chest toward my mokeskin pouch.

"Rightful people?" I asked quietly.

"Aye, boy. Though rightful smith is more like it," A new, gruff, voice said from the door. I turned around and saw a steely haired woman stomp into the throne room, "I was just headed here when your damned Raven came for me, Islanzadi! Though, I'm glad to see you sent the blasted thing for a reason." I couldn't help my grin as the woman browbeat the queen with casual ease, plucking a white sword out of the air with barely a glance at it as she drew level with me and the scouts.

"Oh, Islingr," she muttered, looking at the bone white blade with a practiced eye, "what did that bastard do to you?" I looked at her curiously as I stepped up and held out my hand.

"May I?" she looked curious but passed the sword to me anyway. I shuddered at the feeling of black magic in the blade and ground my teeth trying to think of something… "_Finite Malus," _I whispered and a pulse of red magic erupted from my hand, up the sword, and around the room. The pulse of crimson magic sank into six other blades on the floor, I could only stare at the blade in awe. It not only let my magic travel through it, but _amplified _it. I grinned viciously at the thought as I passed the sword back to the smith. She took it with an awestruck look on her face before she grinned broadly.

"I'm impressed, Argetlam," she said gruffly, sliding the blade through her belt. "If you need a blade better for you than that poker at your side, come find me in the forge. I have work to do. Oh, before I forget, these are _my _blades, Islanzadi. I forged them for the riders but they are _mine._ Argetlam! Keep them for me, would you?" She asked me. I nodded dumbly as we locked eyes - I waved my hand, returning the swords to my pack. "Excellent," she said with a nod toward me just as the smith turned on heel and marched out of the chamber before I could say another word, thankfully Islanzadi had realized either her faux pas in that time or that she had just been beaten by the hammer blunt smith.

"I… apologize, Shur'tugal. I am not used to your tongue, it has been many years since I have had need of it. I believe the correct term I was searching for was rightful creators?"

"Original creator," I said a bit less on edge but still annoyed. "There is one more thing, though," I said as I pulled out my mokeskin pouch. These people may be prideful, arrogant bastards, but they've proven they would do anything for the dragons. I glanced over at my companions who were all nearly vibrating in excitement - they would also force me to show the eggs if I didn't do it on my own terms. The queen quirked one of her eyebrows before her jaw went slack at the emerald and sapphire eggs being pulled from my pouch simultaneously.

There was a beat of silence before the chamber erupted in a roar that was as equally deafening as it was impressive. I doubt even Astraeus would even be able to match it if I hit him with a _Sonorous._ There were elves jumping up and down, some were dancing with each other, and then there were the few who were just staring at the eggs in my hands as if they couldn't believe their eyes. The queen said nothing, just raising her staff with a massive (and real) smile stretching across her face.

"Harry Potter, you have given my people hope once more. As such, I name you elf friend," she said as she reached out her staff once again. The white raven came fluttering in from the window and landed on his previous place with something in his talons. Islanzadi took the ring - now that I could see what it was - from the Raven and stepped down from the dais. I replaced the eggs in my pouch and watched the hauntingly beautiful queen warily. "There is only one other of the Alfakyn roaming the world, Harry Potter. Another former rider by the name of Brom, you will meet him one day, I should think." She smirked as she handed the golden ring inset with a ruby to me. "You will do us proud."

I nodded to her but was already pumping charms and detection wards into it as fast as I could. There was nothing inherently dangerous about the ring, or at least nothing that would kill me if I wore it - CONSTANT VIGILANCE! And all that. With that, I resolved to scan the damn thing even further in depth when I was finally alone. Well, only one thing left to do… I fought back a grimace as Islandzadi looked at me expectantly, I sighed and pulled the ring onto my right ring finger - only slightly surprised to find that it fit me perfectly. The Queen looked around the room and lifted her hand once more,

"I call this session over, may we meet again! We feast this night!" She called to another round of cheers in the room. In seconds the room was empty, save for the five of our travelling group and the queen.

"You are a mystery… Harry Potter… You come to us yet you do not know us, you bear the dragon eggs but do not relinquish them, and you do not ask for training in our ways… I would know why." Her green eyes were cold, calculating, analytical, as she tried to bore holes through me with them alone. I stared right back at her and smirked, Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth would have torn strips from this cub and I'd been shouted down by much more intimidating people. Hell, _Voldemort _was the literal boogeyman to Wizarding Britain and I walked up and _let _him kill me. Even _Snape_, the bloody, traitorous git he was, had a better death glare than this hollow supermodel of a Queen.

"Queen Islanzadi, you tout yourself high," I rebuked her sharply, "but I do not need your magic, I do not need your help - though it is appreciated greatly. I came to these woods to find a place to hide or seek shelter for the rest of my days, only to find that those now stretch into the uncountable - the unfathomable. I will fight a war against Galbatorix, if need be, but only after my dragon grows stronger," she stepped back as if stung but I carried on. "Fifteen days ago I had no idea elves still lived. Make no mistake, your majesty, I am no boy you can browbeat into your cause. I was an Auror - a soldier and lawman. I have seen things that would make Galbatorix squirm and scream and I have destroyed that darkness without hesitation. The very coat I wear came from a beast that would have killed Astraeus with, dare I say it, laughable, no - _hilarious, _ease. Come and see," I said, projecting the image of the basilisk to the front of my mind. I knew the instant the Queen was in my mind, her presence was just so _big. _But, it was hard to find something you couldn't see. My mental defences - after I found a teacher better than Snape - were superb simply because of how unorthodox they were. Most people use the '_clear your mind,' _or the '_focus on this,' _mentality - I do the latter and focus on my invisibility cloak. I know it better than most things and it works better than any shield - there's also a small area to let the person trying to find my mind basically knock, which was what the queen was doing. For the queen to see my fights with the basilisk, I simply have to push those memories _through _the cloak for her to watch.

The queen gasped in horror and staggered backward after she saw the sheer magnitude of the Basilisk and felt what I was feeling as I fought it.

"By Stars and Dragonfire," she muttered as she looked at me in a new light. She frowned before she obviously made a decision. "Come, Rider, there is something you must see," was all she said as she strode toward the door. I looked at the other three and nodded.

"I'll catch up later, I'm going to see where she's taking me. Come on, Trae." I said quietly and turned back to the door with the dragon at my heels. I managed to catch up with the queen and fell in step with the woman as she sped through the paths of the city. It took us about ten minutes before the trees broke and we found ourselves in a clearing. The queen whirled around to face me one more time.

"Before we go any further, I must ask your oath of silence in this matter. I would have it in my tongue as well, no oath spoken in it can be torn asunder." She said coldly and I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Why should I give you my word?" I asked in my cold commander tone. She glared at me for a beat before deflating.

"To protect a man's life, our kind, our very future..." she said quietly. I felt the truth in her words and nodded hesitantly.

"Alright then," I muttered, "but I want Yaela, Wyrden, Vanir, or even Rhunon, here so I know I'm not swearing to something I don't want to," she looked at me and I stared back at her just as forcefully. She sighed and waved her hand as Rhunon walked out of the trees with a smirk.

"That'll be five gold, lassy," the smith said with a broad grin. The queen sighed and handed over the coins. I raised my eyebrow at them and then at Astraeus who looked equally confused.

"_We missed something."_

"_Obviously," _I shot back as Rhunon snorted.

"We knew you were coming, I told lassy here," the smith indicated the frowning queen, "that you wouldn't be stupid enough to take any chances with a language you didn't know. She thought you'd do it without hesitation."

"I may have in my youth," I said with a small smile, "but I've learned better now."

"Good lad! Alright here's the oath in your tongue: 'I, state your name, henceforth do swear that I shall not divulge information on the Mourning Sage or his mount with any being living - be it willing or by force - unless they too are aware of the Sage as well. I do swear this until such time I am released from my oath by the Queen of the Elves or the Mourning Sage.' Got that, boy?" she asked gruffly and, for a second, I saw a flash of Moody superimposed on the smith. I felt my lips quirk as I chewed on the oath for a second and found that it really wouldn't hurt that much in the long run.

"Alright, yeah. I've got it," I said. Rhunon nodded and coached me through the oath word by word until she was confident enough I could give the oath and Astraeus could too. Taking an oath from a dragon… Will wonders ever cease? We both took the oath and the queen led us over to the edge of a cliff. I blinked in surprise at the view. I looked over to where the queen was just standing to see she had already disappeared. I sighed and shook my head again as I leaned on Astraeus and soaked up the view.

"You know," I said quietly, "this isn't quite as breathtaking as the time Gin and I took the kids to the States to see that Canyon of theirs out in Arizona. Also, there's not a Thunderbird in sight but it's still a magnificent view indeed, but why would a mourning sage be out here?"

"_What is this thunderbird you speak of, Harry?" _Astraeus asked. I sent him an image of the enormous bird and he hummed approvingly.

"I miss them, Trae…" I whispered quietly.

"_Aye, but you are here, partner-of-heart-and-mind. I would not have you anywhere else."_

"Of course you wouldn't, bud," I grinned and looked him in the eye. Right up until I creased my forehead in concentration, listening to the air around us. Astraeus' ears perked up too as he heard it. It sounded like distant thunder but it was too long and low to be that, not to mention the sky was completely clear. I frowned deeper and put a hand on my sword, summoning the elder wand I hissed a low _activate _to make sure I was protected against whatever was coming. With one last jerk of my wrist I was fully armored, shielded, and prepared to face any potential threat. I apparated Astraeus and I away from the cliff face by about a hundred yards and waited on whatever it was flapping it's way up the cliff. I felt my jaw drop as it finally came into view though.

A mind bogglingly _enormous _dragon crested the cliff face for at least a hundred meters in each direction as he hauled himself up and over the cliff face. I swallowed nervously as the sixty meter tall - at the withers, it's head stretched another five above that - came crashing to the ground with an almighty crash. I barely registered the fact that A: Astraeus had his fangs bared and B: the dragon had a rider climbing down his side.

The rider, garbed in pure white - almost shimmering - robes that opposed the dull grey of my Goblin steel armor quite well, hit the ground with his hands spread in the universal gesture of peace as the titanic dragon folded his wings carefully.

"Peace, Rider Potter. I am Oromis, du Osthato Chetowa, the Mourning Sage and the last of the Riders of Old. Come, we have much to speak of."

**XXX**

**[1] 45 kilos is roughly 100 pounds. **


	5. The Cripple Who is Whole

**AN: Hey guys! Welcome to chapter four of Call of the Dragon! Thank you for all the support and for reading this but a few things before we get into the story:**

**One: I have been able to update and post so much recently because I had taken this semester off from university due to the recent COVID-19 Pandemic we all hate. Therefore, I will not be able to write _nearly _as much as I have since July and will not be able to write as much as I like and for that I apologize. All this means is that I'll be able to post the next chapter for this story and another for Wayfinder (shameless self plug!) before everything grinds to a basic halt... **

**Two: Reviews! (I read everyone's reviews, please know that I appreciate them more than you'll ever know but the one's I do answer belong in a public forum):**

**Haldir639: _"__Harry is increasingly an obnoxious Sue with the majority of each chapter dedicated to him either being a badass or over-explaining how his piles of unmatched-tier equipment works, it's really slowing down the story."_**

**_ \- _Possibly at the moment but this will not always be the case. Stick with it and you'll see what I mean.**

**Y0sh: _"__hate to be this guy, but meat doesn't help at all if you require more calories. Quite the contrary actually, all the protein will induce satiation much quicker."_**

** \- "Anything before the word 'but,' is bullshit," - George R.R. Martin. You don't hate to be that guy so don't say you are, call me out on my bullshit all you like because that's half of what fiction is - bullshit. But we love it anyway. I'm not a biologist or nutritionist so I'll take all the help I can get.**

**HeroLuffy726: _"__So, overall I liked the chapter. There was one thing that was a bit . . . irksome. Though it's mostly a difference in taste maybe. That would be the way Harry acts towards/thinks about Islanzadi. Now I'm not saying he should be groveling towards her or anything remotely similar to that. But one thing sort of caught my attention and that was him thinking she was less impressive or overbearing than Queen Elizabeth._**

**_Frankly that's a fanciful notion, and it does a bit of a disservice to Islanzadi as a character. And she's not even my most favorite character or anything. To be honest I wasn't a giant fan of her. Yet she is not an unimpressive figure, quite the opposite. That's sort of how she's portrayed here. It's not quite bashing, but it toes the line very heavily. I'm not saying I think Harry should have tremendous respect for her, or be in awe of her. More that the utter dismissal and then saying that she's not as impressive as a Queen that politically is more a figurehead and power broker is a bit much. Especially when Islanzadi is an actual Queen in name AND practice. Add on the fact she's lived for presumably centuries and possibly millennia, seen a lot of crap including the Rider War, is an extremely powerful magic user, etc., the idea she isn't at the very least as imposing a figure as Elizabeth is disrespectful to her purpose as a character."_**

**\- For the love of God, what did Islanzadi do to be worthy of all the things you just listed? Kicked her daughter out of Ellesmera because Arya had the gall to want to help the humans, didn't know the only Elf Friend in the world had _died, _and in her first major engagement of the war she saw to personally she fucking died... So, I don't know about you but God Save the Queen. Also, get off your ego trip. Seriously, no one actually cares about some basement troll who has a seventeen point checklist about things he hates and not a single positive. Check yourself at the door, you self righteous  
**

**Stylo1: _"__partner of my heart. blegh! that sounds just like daenerys from GOT it was disgusting then and it is even worse now considering it is between men._**

**_your theory of how they use magic is all wrong. they use their life force as magic, if as you say it comes from the surounding they would not need to charge their gems with their own magic but simply draw it from the outside"_**

**\- Speaking of basement trolls, we come to the king of them all! Dude, seriously, you've left like one positive review in my inbox and tried to burn me out with the rest of them - but that's perfectly fine because you actually make good points occasionally. In this case not really. Where does strength come from? The food you eat, the water you drink, the air you breath? Mostly the last. In this world magic comes like breathing while Harry's is more of a battery in him. You can look at them the same way but Harry's recharges _much _faster out of the two - I like to look at it this way: Alagaesian magic is a rechargeable double A, Harry's is a car battery with an alternator, and Alagaesian dragons are power plants. As for the "partner of my heart," thing? Yeah, that's Paolini. Saphira was known to call Eragon "partner of heart and mind," in the series and I'm trying to be faithful to that.**

**And now: On with the Story!**

* * *

For a few seconds, all I could do was stare at the old man. He just shows up out of nowhere on a gargantuan golden dragon and he's the one telling me to be at peace? Well, I glanced down at myself and sighed, I suppose I _was _the one in full armor. With a thought, I dismissed the elder wand and my shield. Once those were gone I reached up to my visor and pushed it up, breaking the seal and revealing my face to the old elf for the first time.

"Alright," I said calmly, "we'll have it your way, Oromis." The elf smiled beatifically as he folded his hands into his sleeves revealing a flash of gold at his hip. My eyes went straight for it and I noted, with only slight alarm, that he had one of the swords similar to the ones I stole hanging at his waist.

"Excellent, Rider Potter. Perhaps we can start with your story? You have my word that nothing we speak of here today will be revealed to anyone - save maybe Islanzadi."

"And why would the queen need to know Rider business?" I asked exasperatedly.

"_For the Elves and Riders are as connected as land and sea, Rider Potter. I am Glaedr, well met," _a voice like grinding stones said directly into my head. I felt my eyes widen as I realized that the monstrous dragon looming over us had bypassed my first line of defense as easily as Astraeus could without the connection the red dragon and I shared.

"Well met, Glaedr," I called back up to him, "and, if you will pardon my ignorance, I would know how this is so?"

"The elves and dragons formed the first pact after du Fyrn Skulblaka, Rider Potter. Humans were introduced to the pact when they landed on these shores centuries later. Your race is young, Harry Potter - among the dwarves, dragons, elves, and Urgals, your kind was last to the shores of Alagaesia." The old man said steadily as ever. I cocked an eyebrow at one of the terms though.

"Urgals?" Even Astraeus felt curious at that, "what are they?"

"The Urgals are neither man nor beast but some fell creature between," he said gravely, his stony face at odds with the kindness that had just been on display. Are all the Elves here this frustratingly arrogant with Rhunon being the only exception or am I going to have to bust some heads? "The Urgals are imposing creatures with their smallest being a'height with the largest of man. They are fast and powerful, terribly so… Though members of their highest caste made even veteran riders tremble, they are called the Kull. They are monsters eight feet tall with horns like those of a ram and skin such as boiled leather…" he trailed off and I raised my eyebrow again.

"So, they're giants? With horns?" Oromis' face split into a grin as I said that.

"Almost, Rider Potter. Almost…" '_Well, at least they're scared of the Urgals for a good reason,'_ I thought in the brief pause Oromis took. "Can you ride Astraeus yet?"

"_Nay," _Trae said sadly, "_I am not strong enough for us to fly as Dragon and Rider should."_

"One day you shall," said Oromis as he walked back to the wall of flesh that was his dragon. I finally got a better look at Glaedr and noticed that his front foreleg was just _gone - _detached at the elbow by something incredibly powerful. For a second I wondered how, or what, cut it off. "You may ride with me if you so wish," the old elf offered kindly. I just shook my head and warped into my eagle form and perched on one of Astraeus' horns. Oromis looked gobsmacked, if I was human I might have actually fallen over laughing. "Astounding… Come, we fly!"

The ancient elf mounted his dragon even as Astraeus and I took to the skies. I let out a cry as Astraeus roared in triumph as the Golden Dragon took to the air. Together, we flew along the white cliff with the sun sinking in the sky but I thought we were heading north. For a few miles, we raced (as fast as Glaedr could manage) up the wall until the golden dragon banked over toward another clearing on the top of the cliff. It wasn't hard to find the hut sitting about a hundred yards back toward the trees. The hut was a low thing, barely tall enough for a person to stand upright in comfortably, much less for the titanic dragon to fit in. In fact, he could have probably eaten the hut and still been hungry.

"Welcome to my home," said Oromis as he jumped off the dragon's back and landed with exceptional ease. I felt my body twist and writhe as I changed back to human form with my boots on the ground. "I find my mind is much clearer away from the bustle of Ellesmera… The absence of others is also a wonderful help. Would you care for a drink?"

I nodded, "that would be wonderful." The old man grinned and moved back inside the hut. I glanced at Astraeus who was standing nose to nose with Glaedr who was towering over him. I couldn't help but chuckle as I brought my fist to my chest, hissed to deactivate it, and sighed in relief as the weight fell away just in time for the elf returned with a pair of leather canteens and a pair of low, wooden stools.

"An interesting choice of dress, Rider Potter," Oromis said as he examined my clothes. I grimaced slightly.

"It's all I have, I'm afraid. I've been able to use magic to keep them clean and together but they aren't the best for riding or camping," I said calmly. Again, I was kind of murdered in these clothes so I'm not too fond of them but at least they're comfortable. A pair of jeans, a simple, black t-shirt, with my coat was all I had to wear - unlike Hannah or Susan, I don't keep three extra sets of clothes in my kit… But that's because they were the infiltration specialists and I most assuredly wasn't.

"One does not wear the skin of a beast lightly, Harry," the old elf said as he put his stool down and passed me one of the leather canteens and the other stool. I nodded and took both of them.

"One does not kill a Basilisk lightly," I shot back again pulling every memory I had of them from behind my defenses. "Come and see." The old elf raised an eyebrow and I felt his presence on the border of my mind before he stepped into the memories. I watched as Oromis's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as he watched my fights with both Basilisks in short order.

"Incredible…" The old elf gasped, "these… Basilisks?" I nodded and he went on, "they are truly remarkable. Though I do not understand why your sight had to be impaired to duel them?"

"They kill with their eyes, one glance and you're dead. One drop of their venom could kill an entire city - theoretically, it could be weaker or it could be _so _much stronger, we never found any conclusive results on it. I still don't understand how I lived through being bitten by one when I was twelve. By all rights, I should have been the first victim of a basilisk attack in half a century but I lived thanks to a firebird," I scoffed at how ridiculous that must have sounded. I looked up from staring at the ground and saw that Oromis had a pensive look on his face.

"Yet, in all my travels of Alagaesia, Surda, and the lands surrounding I have not heard a whisper of these beasts… Where do you come from, Harry Potter?"

I looked at the ancient elf and fell silent, bringing the flagon to my lips and taking a pull of the ice-cold, pure water while thinking of what to say, what to explain.

_Everything._

For a second, the world stopped. The flagon fell from my fingers, my body tensed up, and my eyes grew wider than dinner plates - Astraeus was on alert too as he was by my side in a beat with his fangs bared and wings flared.

"What has happened?" Oromis said in a voice like steel. I glanced over at him and saw he had his hand on his sword. I relaxed slightly and closed my eyes, trying to marshall my thoughts.

"An old acquaintance," I muttered darkly. "What do you know of Death?" I asked seriously. The old elf looked confused but answered the question.

"It is the end, none will avoid it though some can stave it off longer than others. What is beyond is unknown and can only be theorized. What brought this about, Rider Potter? You will see the millennia pass, kingdoms fall, empires rise, and you will weather all these storms."

"No, not death but _Death," _I made sure to stress the second time I said it. "The Avatar of the reaper."

"Death has no face," Oromis said shakenly, his grey eyes narrowed.

"No… In that you're right, but it _does _have an avatar. Right terrifying it is too…" I said quietly as I stared out over the cliff.

"That is quite difficult to take in," Oromis said quietly. "You're sure of this?"

"Absolutely," I said quietly.

"Times like this are when I detest the tongue of man. I am unsure whether you speak the truth or if you speak _your _truth…" he said with his lips in a tight line across his face, he glanced at me before turning toward me. "May I see your hands?" he asked. I looked at him curiously but turned to face him too. "I have found that a man's hands will tell you much about him." I nodded and gave him my hands. The elf took my wrists with his thin, dry fingers but I didn't so much as twitch as he examined them with a frown of concentration written on his face. "Interesting… You have seen combat but your hands say you have only handled a baton and quill in recent years, yet these calluses are old… You are not unused to manual labor it appears, though you have never driven the plow or rode a horse. You are an interesting contradiction, Rider Potter," he said quietly. Our eyes met and I could feel his presence in my mind but, for the moment, I stonewalled him. His eyes widened as he tried to dig deeper and I let him through.

"What is this?" asked Oromis as he found himself trapped in my third line of mental defenses. Out of the five, this was probably the most useful. The first was the boundary line where I could tell if someone had, figuratively, rang the bell. My second level was my… Well, I suppose "receiving area," would be the correct term - others would call it hell.

"Welcome to my parlor," I said as I appeared in the replica of the Gryffindor common room I've used ever since Tracey Davis taught me Occlumency. She was far and away better than Snape ever could have dreamed of being as a teacher. Of course, that meant she was also one of the most qualified legilimencers I had ever met - as such, she was the team intelligence officer, interrogator, and spy for the Dragons. I wasn't a fan of having a full-blown spy on my team but there were no doubts as to her loyalty and it paid dividends. I saved her brother, apparently, from one of the Death Eaters the night that they raided Hogwarts the first time - and her. She may have been a Slytherin but she was still a half-blood, her father forced her to transfer to Beauxbatons only to come back to help her best friend - Daphne Greengrass, ironically - in the last battle of Hogwarts.

"This is… different, Rider Potter. I am unused to telepathy manifesting in this manner. Flashes of your life, speaking between each other at distance, listening to your thoughts? With these I am familiar, but this? This is beyond me. How?" He asked in awe as he looked around the room.

"Our magics are different, much different. Would you like to take a seat?" He nodded and sat in the comfortable armchair to my right - I was in my favorite recliner. With a thought, a large TV screen appeared on the mantle, much to Oromis' surprise.

"What the devil…"

"Welcome to my world, Oromis, or at least a very small part of it" I said with a vicious grin. "Don't worry, this will only take a few seconds on the outside, but since you were already in here… Well, I'm sure you won't mind a bit more information about my life. Though I'll need your oath to keep it between us." I said seriously with a quick gesture toward the TV, making the Gryffindor crest appear on the screen. Oromis' eyes flicked to the screen as he took in a breath.

"Indeed, Rider Potter. Though I am not sure I can give you that oath," he said as he met my eyes. I nodded and templed my fingers under my nose.

"Then I can say nothing to you," I said quietly, getting a nod from the old elf. "However, this will have to come out to the world at some point - I only ask you to keep it between us until such time, or I release you from that oath. It's not that much different to what I swore to," The old elf nodded slowly as he mirrored my gesture.

"This I can do," Oromis said with a small grin. "What is it you wish of me?"

"I would have you sign a contract that I will draw up when we leave here, I know my magic can bind a man to his word - I know yours can do as Islanzadi swore me to secrecy already, though how it can do that is beyond me." I raised my eyebrow and looked over to the elf.

"Indeed," he said with a small smirk. "The ancient language is a tongue of wonders. The alleged first people of this land - the grey folk, as we call them now - bound the magic of Alagaesia to the language. Before, magic was wild, untamed. And it still can be, though danger lies on that path like a waiting serpent. Magic, undirected by spoken word, is a danger unlike any other." He said calmly.

"Then I would have you swear to not reveal the details of what we discuss here today with any sentient creature - other than Glaedr - until I release you from your oath. I would also ask you to sign the contract I write on leaving this place."

"We have an accord, Rider Potter," Oromis said as he jumped into a short, flowing burst of the ancient language. I only picked up a few words of it thanks to Vanir, Wyrden, and Yaela, but I understood enough to know that he probably swore the oath properly... _Probably._

"Excellent," I said with a flick of my wrist toward the mantle, "shall we begin?" As I said that, the screen slowly grew until it covered the entire side of the wall and the lighting of the room dropped to only what the screen gave off. "The first thing you must understand about me is that I do not come from this world." I said simply. The elf looked at me with a scrunched brow and was obviously stunned.

"You… You don't come from this world? Then where do you come from?" He asked slowly.

"A world called Earth," I said as images of London, New York, Dubai, and other major cities flashed across the screen leaving Oromis in stunned silence. "But to my story, that is the least important detail. My name is Harry James Potter, son of Lily Potter nee Evans and James Crotine Potter. To understand my story, you must understand the life of one Tom Marvolo Riddle," I said quietly as the image of the teenaged version of Tom from the chamber appeared on the screen.

"Who is this man?" Oromis asked quietly, still mulling over the revelation I dropped in his lap. I glanced over at him and saw him examine the screen.

"The man who thought I was destined to kill him thanks to a damned prophecy he didn't even have the decency to make sure was complete," I saw Oromis glance over at me from the corner of my eye as the image of the young, handsome Tom slowly transformed through the phases of his life that Albus showed me in my sixth year up until he became the ghoul I knew from the Graveyard.

"What did he do to himself?" Oromis whispered in horror.

"He tried to cheat death, instead he robbed himself of his final peace," Oromis looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "He split his soul," I said simply. The old elf's face went through a myriad of emotions before it finally settled on nauseated horror.

"The soul exists, and this… _creature _shattered his?" he asked tightly.

"Like a pane of glass," I said darkly, frowning as I threw up the images of the Horcruxes. "Unfortunately for him, I destroyed those and sent him to his just rewards," I smirked and let the old elf watch the mayhem that was destroying Horcruxes. Thank _Merlin _that Voldemort was the only Dark Lord so obsessed with immortality enough that he would actually go through with splintering his soul that I had to face. I couldn't help but smirk at the irony slightly, Voldemort was so obsessed with immortality that it got him killed _decades _before his lifespan would have naturally ended while I died, was resurrected, and became immortal all from a twist of fate. It's mind boggling actually.

"You defeated him when you were seven and ten?" Oromis asked, slightly awed. "Even in my prime, I would have struggled against an evil such as he… It gives me hope that Galbatorix will truly fall, young rider."

"Oh, he'll fall. The question you have to ask is '_when'?"_ I said with a small smirk that Oromis returned in kind.

"Soon, I would hope, though we all are aware that fate does not always agree with what we wish."

"No, it really doesn't…" I replied after a beat to collect my thoughts. "Now, where shall we begin our journey?"

"I would know what you did after this Tom Riddle fell," he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I was an auror," I grinned broadly but it fell from my face a beat later, "it was everything to me…" I felt my heart twist slightly as I went on, "and to think I first chose it just to spite a heartless bitch that said I couldn't do it when I was fifteen - then I became the best damned Auror England had ever seen, the best of her Majesty's service. And here I was wanting to play quidditch for the rest of my life," I joked but Oromis didn't look impressed as one of my more exciting matches appeared on the screen as I templed my fingers again and thought about my entire career. "Though, I suppose my family should have come first. I loved my family, I did, but I loved my job. I was a lawman, I protected the people I loved, those I didn't… My entire life has been one fight after another, Oromis. I tried to be there for my kids and my wife but I always thought that I could do the most good for the rest of the world as an Auror, I was actually just getting closer to them than I ever had been when… Well, we don't have to talk about that," I said quietly as I thought about the corps and the first picture we took together sprung onto the screen without me even thinking about it.

"And who are they?" Oromis asked quietly. I jerked slightly and realized that the Corps was on screen. I sighed gently as I took in the image one more time. It was taken one night when we were off duty from our normal duties - a man has to have a day job after all, and until the armor was activated we were supposedly normal aurors. We took that picture in a small wizarding restaurant that Parvarti Patil opened in oh-four after she decided that culinary school was for her. Turns out, the Michelin award exists in both the mundane and magical world and somehow Parvarti got two stars in as many years.

"That's the Dragon Corps," I felt the smile on my lips as I reminisced on the good times with the team. "That was my team, the group that I formed to make sure that no other Dark Lords like Voldemort ever rose again."

"And yet you all wear Dragon skin?" Oromis asked disapprovingly. I felt myself frown at the edge in his tone.

"We do, but the dragons of my home were violent, terrible beasts - nothing more. Astraeus is the first that I was actually able to talk to, and I tried to communicate with them but I was attacked by every, single one. Even one I had known since it hatched," I said grimly, making Oromis frown deeper, "fortunately, or unfortunately - depending on your point of view, they had a rather short lifespan for a creature of their size. They could also be killed despite their incredibly tough hides," I said quietly, showing my time against the Horntail in the sham that was the Triwizard tournament.

"This is what passes as a dragon in your home? That is no dragon, that is more similar to a Fanghur than a true dragon," he said disgustedly as he watched the Horntail chase me on my broom.

"Fanghur?" I asked, unaware of the term.

"Wind vipers," Oromis clarified with a small sneer, "they are an endangered species that call the Beor mountains home and are a distant cousin to the dragon. They have wings but are unable to breathe fire like the Dragons, nor do they have legs."

"As you can see, the Horntail certainly has legs and I know - from personal experience - that the damned things can breathe fire. It's almost second to none and, if it weren't for the Short-Snout or - now extinct - Prussian Pyreheart, it would be possess the most powerful dragonfire on the planet."

"Planet?" Oromis asked in surprise. I turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, planet," I said slowly. "Don't tell me everyone thinks the world is flat here, I had enough of that nonsense in my last world."

"We had our suspicions that the world was round but we had no real proof, Rider Potter, other than taking our dragons to their maximum altitude." He said slowly and I just rolled my eyes.

"You know, my people figured out the world was round more than two thousand years ago. They recorded shadows of fixed objects in different parts of the world. What they found was that the shadows at these objects, at high noon, would stretch to different lengths. Thus we had the first idea that the world was round. But, eleven years before I was born, a country managed to put a man on the moon and we found incontrovertible proof it was round," I said with a grin. Oromis' jaw slackened slightly.

"How?" he asked, utterly stunned. I just grinned and pulled up a vision of the SpaceX launch to the Space Station back in twenty-twenty. Oromis leaned back in his chair as he looked at the rocket. "And what is this?"

"This," I said with a bit of pomp, "is called a rocket. This was what put man in space and onto the moon herself, this is the pinnacle of engineering," I said as I grinned slightly as the rocket took off.

"Incredible…" he whispered in awe, "yet also irrelevant for the time being, Rider Potter. Would you allow me to see your time when you entered... _Our _world?"

"Of course," I said quietly, frowning as I looked up at the screen and focused on those memories. For some reason, the screen was still black even as I tried to enhance the memory. _Click. _I heard the familiar sound and immediately knew what was happening as the golden ball of light lit up the small corridor I stepped out into after I opened the door.

"A prison ward?" Oromis muttered quietly, trying to put every detail to memory. I just grinned even broader as I stepped into the fake DOM foyer.

"So I assumed," I said with a frown of concentration. "Brace yourself, the things you see may be disturbing." Oromis glanced at me apprehensively as memory-me pushed open the first door to reveal the storage room that I packed away in a matter of seconds. The sage looked impressed but snorted as he read the placard I left for the King. Together, we watched as I stole his office, his armory - arming myself with the sword currently on my hip in reality, the royal treasury, but the most interesting bit was Oromis' reaction to the strange, multifaceted gems was… well, odd wasn't the right word and demented was too strong but it certainly was bizarre. What I did know, was that the elf fell out of his seat and knocked over his chair from reeling so hard as he gasped out a sound somewhere between a landed fish and boar's squeal.

"We need to leave, immediately," Oromis said as he rounded on me with fire in his eyes. Without hesitation I cut us loose from my mindspace and watched as Oromis tried to dive for my pack, I hit him with a quick body bind but caught him before he hit the ground.

"Slowly, you need to tell me what those are if I'm going to help you," I said calmly as the elf took a breath in.

"Indeed… Forgive me, Rider Potter, I forgot myself in my haste. Would you release the magic binding me?" I nodded and did just that, much to the elf's relief. "Thank you, Rider Potter. That was most uncomfortable. But, may I see them?" He asked quietly, hopefully… He honestly sounded like a man who hadn't had hope in centuries and I was handing it to him on a silver platter and still couldn't believe it. I nodded and glanced over at Astraeus, relaying him everything that had just happened while I was sure Glaedr and Oromis were doing the same thing.

I unslung my pack and summoned the gemstones, letting them tumble onto the dirt with that same, strange screech that tore at the wall that was my mental defenses. I growled and just let them enter the second stage, hoping that would be enough to contain the screech for a few seconds. It was. I summoned the elder wand and cast a quick stasis charm on the gems now that I knew that they were the source of the mental invasions - silencing them instantly. As soon as they fell silent, everyone in the clearing let out a quiet sigh of relief - until Glaedr threw his head back and roared a single, mournful note that honestly scared me.

"What are these?" I asked Oromis who looked at the jewels scattered on the ground. But it wasn't Oromis who answered.

"_These are Eldunari, young rider," _the golden behemoth said quietly as he loomed over me and Astraeus who was now by my side. "_Your people have no name for them but a vulgar explanation would be that these are the heart of our hearts. They are a dragon's last defense in the case of death and are a vessel for the mind of the dragon even if the flesh should die. They can be used as a method for dragons to share their knowledge with their progeny but our order used them as a method for rider and dragon to communicate no matter where they were in the world - though only in the direst circumstances. When a dragon hatches, the Eldunari is clear and lackluster, these - as your eyes tell you - are not. A dragon's consciousness can reside in either the skull or within these," _the great dragon said gravely. I stared at the glowing gems at my feet in horror as I realized what Galbatorix had done.

"He took these from the dragons he killed," I whispered - the rows upon rows of various sized gems laying at my feet becoming a macabre sight as that realization washed over me.

"_Yes," _Glaedr said somberly, "_but know this, young rider, you may have saved these Eldunari's very souls but they are still enslaved to the Black King." _I glanced up at the dragon and smirked slightly.

"Black King… That's fitting… But here's what we're going to do," I said turning back to Oromis who had an eyebrow raised. "I need to know where to find a large slab of granite."

"Beneath our feet," the elf said as he waved his hand, "the rock is the heart of Du Weldenvarden, though I cannot see how it is at all relevant to our situation." I didn't say a word as I knelt on the ground, focusing on what I needed and grinned. With a frown of concentration, I sent a series of Diffindos into the Earth to shape the granite to what I needed it to be, pulling it from the Earth with quick featherweight and levitation charms. I didn't see Oromis' look of wonder as the three by three by three meter cube of granite rose from the Earth. I glanced up and looked at the sun's position and cursed under my breath slightly, this charm was usually best performed under the moonlight or at high noon, but I guess midafternoon will have to do.

Without pausing to think, I reached up to my mokeskin pouch and summoned my rune carving kit Gin got me a few years back. It's old and out of style but sometimes the old stuff works wonders the new stuff just can't compete with. It was just a simple pen knife and stylus but they always did the trick.

"Come back tomorrow morning and I'll let you know," I said with a glance back at the old elf, "this is going to take several hours at least."

"Then I shall stay here and assist you in any way I can, Rider Potter. What is needed of me?" he asked as Glaedr snorted too. I glanced up at the golden dragon before patting Astraeus on the shoulder. He nudged me gently and padded off as I turned back to meet Oromis's steely grey eyes.

"Alright then," I said easily, "first of all…"

**XXX**

"That took quite some time longer than I had expected, Rider Potter," Oromis said, panting slightly. Gone were his flowing, white robes - long since been replaced by simple woolen leggings and a dark green tunic as he helped me finish this project.

"Would you believe me if I said that was the fastest I was able to do it then?" I asked with a smirk that the elf only returned with an exasperated sigh.

"Indeed… Though we have been fortified with the strength of Dragons, it is still a feat of magic that I never thought to see - nonetheless perform. Never would I have guessed that magic could be channeled through stone or wood as easily as one's own palm."

"It's something my people figured out a long time ago," I said simply as I finished carving and charging the runic arrays on the pillar of granite.

"So this stone supposedly anchors this Fidelius Charm to the area and will allow you to create a shelter for the Eldunari?" He asked, obviously apprehensive over the whole process.

"Better than that," I said with a broad grin. "If this works like I want it to, and based on the calculations it _should,_" I scratched the back of my head with that last word but carried one, "then it will create a bunker for them right where I pulled the heart stone out of."

"Would the stone not fill the hole then?" Oromis asked with a sharply raised eyebrow. I didn't say anything as I looked over his head at the moon almost directly overhead. I took a breath in and started pumping magic into the stone. The elf took a rapid step back as the wardstone pulsed a deep, rich, crimson. I had to fight my own surprise at the color, usually it would be pure white but something's influenced my magic… I didn't even have to look over at the horse sized dragon, that had curled to sleep on the edge of the cliff, to know it was his doing. Intentionally or not, I had to admit the effect was awesome as the wardstone shifted, spun, and condensed into a garnet sphere no wider across than a regulation football but shining almost as brightly as a lumos charm.

"Incredible," Oromis whispered as he stared at the floating ball, utterly transfixed. I felt the earth shake as Glaedr managed to limp his way over to get a better look at the blood red ball lighting up the clearing.

"_This shall protect the Eldunari?" _the great dragon asked skeptically - as well he should.

"It will," I said confidently. "I've spelled it so that when it's inserted, it will make the actual crypt holding the Eldunari a hundredfold larger than the stone itself was - bloody hard, that was," I muttered slightly, wiping my forehead slightly as I felt my magic reserves fall to what they would be after a rather vigorous mission. While they were low, I could still defend myself with ease. The thing that really worried me was the fact that my core wasn't refilling itself as fast as it had been the entire time I was in the forest. I bit my lip as I thought about what that could mean and came to one conclusion: the wards were using me to power themselves. Which did make sense but they wards should be powered by the environment… I threw my head back and groaned slightly.

"What has happened?" Oromis asked quietly. I sighed and looked him in the eye again.

"I'm going to have to power the Heartstone with the Eldunari - which means that I'll have to free them before we can go any further. The only problem? My magic isn't quite at full capacity, I'm worried that the spell could drain me too fast."

"What would result in complete magical drainage for your people, Rider Potter?" he asked gravely, almost as if he knew the answer but still had to ask it.

"I'd die," I said simply, "but this _has _to be done or I'll never be at my strongest." I looked at the elf and prayed he understood what I was trying to get at. He nodded slowly before unsheathing the sword at his hip and passing it to me hilt first.

"This is Naegling, the sword Rhunon forged for me when I bonded with Glaedr when I was twenty years of age… For as long as I can remember, I have placed an ounce of strength into the diamond on the pommel and since the fall two elves have fortified it with their strength each day," he said mournfully, "I have not told you of my condition as of yet, and that is due to my ignorance. I am unable to touch my magic for more than a fleeting moment or I am wracked with terrible seizures." The old elf, for the first time, didn't look like the very image of wisdom and strength… In fact he looked ancient, terrified, broken. I swallowed and nodded as I unsheathed my blade and pressed it into the dirt tip first and replaced it with Naegling.

"What happened?" I asked quietly once I looked back up. The elf shuddered slightly before his eyes practically glazed over. I took the sword from his hand and helped him to the ground before he fell.

"I… I was captured," the elf whispered. I winced in sympathy, remembering what horrors Galbatorix inflicted on his prisoners. "Two of my students, both of them Forsworn, captured me at the traitor's command. They had captured me as their dragons did battle with Glaedr, I knew I had to escape or else I would surely die by their hands. I am unsure whether it was a spell that did this to me, if the pain shattered my connection to my magic, or if I willed magic to send me elsewhere to escape and I failed to reconstruct my body correctly." he said quietly, I only nodded as I sat beside him.

"I'm sorry that happened to you… Is that how Glaedr lost his leg?"

"_Indeed," _Glaedr's rumbling voice said almost directly into my head. "_I failed my Rider that day, I shall ever live with the token of my failure," _he said indicating his leg. I just sighed and clapped Oromis' shoulder.

"I may be able to help you, but I'll have to go through my notes… One of my teammates - Susan - well, she and my best friend - Hermione - and another one of the team - Neville - found a technique that could potentially reconnect you to your magic. Here's the problem, I'm not a healer. Never learned any of the techniques or anything in depth beyond first aid," I said apologetically but the Old Elf's eyes were wide with hope.

"I… I could be whole?" he whispered like an awestruck child.

"Possibly," I said. Oromis's smile lit up the clearing as Glaedr tilted his head back and roared his triumph to the heavens, "and I _know _I can help Glaedr," I said with a smirk.

"Pray tell, Harry," Oromis said with the smile even broader.

"Well, it wouldn't be organic but I could make him a prosthetic out of metal. He would be able to use it as easily as any other one of his appendages, I've had since my fourth year of Hogwarts to figure it out too," I said with a grin. Voldemort was one sick fuck but he did have some incredible spells - especially the metal hand he gave Wormtail. It _may _have choked the bastard in the end but what goes around comes around. I reverse engineered it with Hermione (unsurprisingly) drooling at the implications of being able to give someone a fully functioning appendage again. That was one of the few things magic couldn't do, regrow limbs. Apparently, they had tried but it turned out so gruesome that the man who had his hand regrown took one look at it and reamputated it himself and asked the doctor to just seal the stump but, of course, those were only rumors.

"_This would be acceptable, Rider Potter, but not until Oromis is reunited with his magic," _the old dragon said quietly, I nodded as a snore from Astraeus broke the silence. I just rolled my eyes at the lazy beast.

"Then we have an accord?" I asked as I reached out my hand. The elf's eyes were wide as he slowly reached up and clasped my forearm.

"We do, Harry," the elf said with hope and determination blazing in his eyes.

"Good," I said with a grin before my eyes flickered back to the Eldunari sitting in the dirt, "but that is for tomorrow, the Eldunari are our concern right now." Oromis's eyes hardened as he looked at the glowing gems.

"Yes, what are we to do with them?" he asked quietly.

"I was hoping you'd tell me how to tap into the sword's strength before I placed the Fidelius Charm on the bunker, that's the last step before the Heartstone can actually work it's magic." I said as I looked over at the pulsing gem hovering in the air, now pulsing more frequently than before. I felt my eyes widen before I felt for my core and realized that it had found an equilibrium. I sighed knowing we only had a few moments before the Heartstone actually started draining my strength. "We must do this quickly."

"Aye," Oromis said. "you will have to reach out with your mind, find the stone," he said, walking over to the heartstone. "You will take the energy into yourself, let it reinforce you, strengthen you, to your best but take no more than necessary," he said seriously as he placed his hand on one side of the Heartstone as I placed my hand on another, summoning an Eldunari and chaining them all together with a spell that Neville taught me - he used it to make sure that his plants grew constantly but I found a way to invert the spell, using it to make sure that the Dragon Corps could share energy if we needed to. Not all of us were magically equal after all and magical exhaustion on the job was not an option. Oromis and I had talked about this part of the ritual in depth before I ever started carving the runes, he wanted to know every detail and I agreed.

I frowned but did as he said, reaching out for the stone. It wasn't too much unlike Legilimency just a bit broader. I felt my mind press outward, reaching into the clearing for signs of anything if it was in a few inches of me. I gasped as I saw the Quasar of power sitting in the Heartstone and then the star sitting at my hip. I reached into the star, diverting it into my core and gasping as it filled it to the brim in seconds. I didn't cut the connection but kept the equilibrium of drain to flood gate as I focused on what I wanted to do next.

"Oromis of Ellesmera," I said as I felt my magic suddenly… Tighten? Coil? I'm not sure what happened but it felt like the clearing and my magic had all tensed in anticipation of what was to come. "Into your hands I entrust this knowledge, do you accept this responsibility? To protect it with your very soul?"

"I so do."

"Then hear me now, Oromis, partner of Glaedr," usually, the parents would be named here but I had forgotten to ask him, right up until I felt the knowledge drift into my head, "third born son of Elia and Legulios of Ellesmera, and understand the knowledge you are to defend _vi et animo_, with heart and soul."

"So mote it be," he said tightly, obviously feeling the magic in the clearing intensify.

"The Vault of the Eldunari lies before the Hut of the Mourning Sage," I said, my voice ringing through the clearing but I had barely said the words above a whisper. Oromis' eyes widened as the Heartstone shone like the moon itself.

"The Vault of the Eldunari lies before the Hut of the Mourning Sage, this I shall defend _vi et animo. _Go, Harry, son of James Croitine, son of Lily Victoria, son of Potter. Go and know this secret shall be held for all my days, so mote it be," he said and the clearing exploded in Crimson light.

"What… What happened?" I asked as I looked around for the wardstone I was just working on before I saw my sword tip down in the dirt to my right. I looked down at the sword on my hip and saw Oromis's golden sword hanging there. I shook my head and looked around for the Old Elf and saw him lying on the ground face down, seizing. I jumped to my feet and ran over to him to try and see what I could do. Glaedr roared over us as he limped closer. I knelt beside the seizing elf and turned him on his side, hitting him with a light stunner to try and get him to stop. It worked, barely. I sighed in relief as Astraeus finally got up from his place on the precipice and meandered over to the three of us.

"_What has happened?" _he asked quietly as he nosed Oromis's stomach gently.

"_This is the Bone-Blight that has afflicted him since that night," _the great golden dragon said sadly as he laid down with his head right beside Oromis's - strangely like a rather large dog beside his master. As soon as the thought crossed my mind I felt Astraeus agree with it. It wasn't the posture of a proud dragon, it wasn't even the image of a dragon at all. Dragons didn't protect their young like that, they would stand over them or before them, ready to fight any opponent that might come. Not lay beside them like a dog.

_These are the last of the great riders? _Astraeus asked directly into my mind in disgust. _They are broken unlike any others. We cannot be like them. _

'_No,' _I replied, '_we can't, not if these people ever want to be truly free…' _I looked down at the Elf who was stirring. I pressed my hand to his forehead and cast a silent _enerverate. _He woke up with a gasp as he rolled onto his hands and knees and started shaking slightly, but not in another seizure - thankfully.

"By Stars and Dragonfire," he whispered as he stared into the grass before settling onto his knees, "never, in all my years, have I seen magic that powerful, nor could I have contemplated it…" he said as he looked up at me. I was slightly confused until I finally realized what was going on. I drew the sword at my hip and handed it to the elf.

"We cast a Fidelius charm didn't we?" the elf looked slightly surprised but said:

"The Vault of the Eldunari lies before the Hut of the Mourning Sage," and my memories came flooding back. I staggered slightly and shook my head as I watched the process from the condensing of the Heartstone up to the casting of the Charm.

"That will never be any easier," I said, rubbing my temples gently before looking at the now marble covered slab in the dirt. I couldn't help the grin that split my face before it slipped away. "And now for the hard part," I grunted as I summoned the Elder wand and focused on the Eldunari who were now powering the ward scheme. "_Regnum Finite Malus, Finite Incantatem Omni," _I barked as Oromis watched me work in wide eyed wonder. I thought this would be sort of difficult, a bit of power to break through the curses layered on the Eldunari, a bit of power to get rid of the other things binding them - how wrong I was. In an instant, I felt my strength drop to a near critical level as a wave of crimson light pulsed from my wand. I found myself trying to tap into Oromis's sword and connected to it without a second thought, draining it like a whirlpool. My eyes widened at the bindings holding the Eldunari and realized something about them, they were chained together - and not by me. To break even one I had to break them all at once. I ground my teeth and focused on pouring all the strength I could into liberating the Eldunari. Moments stretched into eternity as the sword was all but drained and I was sapped to the breaking point but suddenly there was a roar of Triumph that tore into my mind like a whirlwind. I was too tired to fight it off but the invasion wasn't malicious, it was hopeful - thankful even. I felt strength flooding back into my body and core itself but it came far too late to help as the edges of my vision dimmed and I fell face first into the grass with Astraeus at my side desperately trying to get me back to my feet as the world faded to black.


End file.
